With the devastation that interpersonal violence brings to families and communities, there is an urgency to ensure that our prevention efforts are meeting their goals to reduce violence. One of the best ways to ensure that such goals are being attained is by evaluating our efforts. Moreover, in a time of competition over the available resources, there is an increasing need to demonstrate the results of prevention programs.  Although the desire for evaluation may be great, the process of conducting a program evaluation can pose many challenges.

In 1999, ICVP and the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority collaborated with one another to establish the Evaluation Resource Institute. The purpose of the Institute is to provide the violence prevention community in Illinois with the education, tools, resources and expertise to design and implement effective program evaluations.

The overall goals of the Evaluation Resource Institute are to:

• Build the capacity of violence prevention programs to implement effective evaluations;
• Educate the violence prevention community about the importance of program evaluation and the components of a useful program evaluation;
• Increase awareness of the tools and resources needed for effective evaluation; and
• Provide consultation to violence prevention programs on designing an effective evaluation.