Evaluation and community prevention coalitions: Validation of an integrated web-based/technical assistance consultant model

Com mu nity coalitions (CCs) have labored with some diffi culty to dem onstrate empiri cal evidence of effec- tive ness in preventing a wide range of adolescent prob lem behaviors. Train ing and tech ni cal assistance (TA) have been identi fied as important ele ments in pro moting improved func tioning of CCs. A reli able, valid, and inexpen sive method to assess functioning of CCs has been devel oped and is tested in this arti cle in the con text of Penn syl va nia's Com mu nities That Care (CTC) model. A CC Web-based ques tion naire was devel oped and adminis tered to more than 79 com mu nities (867 partic i pants) and the validity and reli abil ity were assessed through mul ti ple means, including the use of a com panion TA implementation feedback question naire com- pleted by TAs assigned to each of the sites. Results indi cated ade quate to good psychometric prop erties on internal reli abil ity of the Web-based ques tion naire, mod er ate construct valid ity across differ ent reports of function- ing, and rel ative sta bility throughout the course of 1 year. Impli cations for a vari ety of com mu nity prevention coalitions interested in a rel atively low-cost, user friendly, and suit able meth odol ogy for eval uating coalition functioning are dis cussed. In addition, areas of application for future research including link ing coalition functioning with the quality and nature of tech ni cal assistance, levels of risk and protective factors, and large data sets of youth risk factor and problem behavior data are highlighted.