Codeveloping theories of change for improved community-based violence intervention evaluation.

Background: Community-based violence intervention (CVI) programs are considered important strategies for preventing community violence and promoting health and safety. Mixed and inconclusive results from some prior CVI evaluations, as well as our general lack of understanding about the reasons for such varied findings, may be explained in part by misalignment of program theories of change and evaluation measures. Furthermore, most prior evaluations have focused solely on deficit-based outcomes; this narrow focus is inconsistent with the premise of CVI and may fail to capture improvements in health and well-being that are on the hypothesized pathway from intervention to violence reduction.

Fidelity Assessment of a Social Work-Led Intervention Among Patients with Firearm Injuries.

Purpose: To support future development and refinement of social work-led intervention programs among patients with firearm injuries and to demonstrate how a fidelity assessment can be used to adjust and refine intervention delivery in an ongoing trial.

Methods: We conducted a fidelity assessment of a randomized controlled trial of a social work-led intervention among patients with a firearm injury.

Results: We found that our study intervention was well implemented, meeting 70% of the fidelity assessment score items, however noted lower fidelity with client-based items.