East Side Aligned

Safe and Thriving Communities Evaluation

East Side Aligned logo

Project Date
Jul 2017 – Sep 2018

Type of Evaluation
Needs Assessment, Planning, Process, Outcome, Training

Setting
Community-based

Overview

East Side Aligned is a collective impact movement within the greater East St. Louis area working to ensure all children and youth are healthy, safe, secure, ready to learn and work, and empowered to create change.

East Side Aligned received a federal grant to develop and implement a plan to reduce youth violence and victimization within the boundaries of East St. Louis School District 189. Grant activities include prevention, intervention, enforcement, and reentry strategies that address violence as a public health challenge.

The Evaluation Center partnered with East Side Aligned to expand an existing community needs assessment, develop and implement an evaluation plan, and provide technical assistance and support to enhance data collection and management capacity.

Project Description

Background

Starting in 2015, East Side Aligned (ESA) stakeholders underwent an extensive community engagement process to identify strategic priorities within the footprint of East St. Louis School District 189. Among many interrelated goals, one core goal was prioritized by the community—that all youth feel and are safe.

St. Clair County—in partnership with United Way of Greater St. Louis—secured funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 2016 to advance ESA’s strategic priorities, specifically through reducing youth violence and victimization in the footprint.

Evaluation Center Activities

  • Expanded and updated the community assessment to introduce and contextualize the planned grant activities.
  • Identified community strengths and challenges, then developed a matrix of secondary data collected from public sources and community partners.
  • Worked with ESA to develop and implement the evaluation plan for the grant. Our activities included the collection, management and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. We developed standardized data collection protocols for grant partners to implement.
  • Provided support to grant partners on the data methods and collection of their performance measurement indicators related to their action plans and other activities.
  • Implemented a robust dissemination plan to ensure that the evaluation findings were being communicated in a timely and relevant manner to all project stakeholders.

Our Products

  • Expanded community assessment report
  • Community assessment infographic-style brief
  • Evaluation plan, including logic model and methods matrix
  • Data collection tools, systems, and protocols
  • Dissemination plan
  • Quarterly data summary snapshots
  • Final evaluation report and other dissemination products
Funder

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention


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