Assessing DCCESV Capacity to Advance Primary Prevention in Washington, DC - The DC Coalition to End Sexual Violence (DCCESV), the federally designated state sexual assault coalition for the District of Columbia, seeks $125,443 in funding from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to administer a Primary Prevention Capacity Assessment (PPCA) in order to advance sexual violence prevention strategy and health equity for marginalized survivors and youth vulnerable to sexual violence (SV). While the PPCA will primarily engage service providers, both through survivors’ participation in the PPCA and through the action steps taken as a result of the data-driven findings and recommendations of the PPCA, DCCESV’s prioritized population is victim-survivors in the District. While DCCESV seeks to enhance services and SV prevention efforts for all survivors, given the demographics of the District and the vulnerabilities of survivors from marginalized populations, DCCESV places a particular focus on serving survivors of color as well as youth who could be vulnerable to the threat of SV. Through subgrantee MCSR (formerly Men Can Stop Rape), DCCESV will create and administer the PPCA to engage traditional SV prevention service providers, youth-serving organizations, and survivors through a three-pronged strategy and to determine the capacity to enhance and expand primary prevention and health equity work in SV prevention. A contracted evaluator, in collaboration with the PPCA steering committee (to be created in the summer of 2023 and made up of DCCESV stakeholders) and the Survivor Advisory Council (a leadership group of survivors created by DCCESV to provide feedback and insight to DCCESV), will ensure that the PPCA is effective, accessible, and able to reach and engage diverse stakeholders to participate. The evaluator will also collect existing data and learnings from stakeholders to inform the data collected from the PPCA. The contracted evaluator will then collect and synthesize the data to determine, among other topics, the adequacy of staffing and resources for SV prevention efforts, the training and expertise of service provider staff members, the depth and breadth of collaboration and partnerships between service providers, and the trends underscored by data collected by stakeholders. The evaluator will seek input from the steering committee and the Survivor Advisory Council to contextualize findings and determine potential recommendations and next steps. The evaluator will then present the disseminate these findings to all stakeholders who participated in the PPCA. The evaluator will also keep track of the evaluation and performance measures to ensure that the administration of the PPCA meets the goals and evaluation measures outlined in the narrative. The findings will assist DCCESV in increasing understanding of staff expertise and available resources; available data sources used to identify communities of focus; current partnerships and ways they are and are not meeting the current and future primary prevention and health equity work needs; and increased understanding of current technical assistance provision and how well it incorporates health equity. Increased understanding will also lead to increased capacity to implement health equity focused SV prevention strategies; increase data-driven decision making to inform programmatic activities related to health equity in SV prevention programming; strengthen partnerships supporting the expansion of health equity work; and increase availability and quality of technical assistance provision regarding health equity. Through these outcomes, the anticipated long term outcome is improved health outcomes for people experiencing disparities and inequities related to SV. Through the administration, findings, and recommendations of the PPCA, DCCESV aims to reduce inequities in risk for SV due to inequitable access to the conditions needed for safety thus reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors for SV.
