Evaluation of the Chattanooga United to Reduce Violence (CURV) Initiative

Community violence is a persistent challenge in cities across the United States. Many cities continue to see increases in homicides and firearm violence that disproportionately harm minoritized communities and youth, concentrated in under-resourced and historically disadvantaged areas. The City of Chattanooga, TN, has applied for Office of Justice Programs funds to launch the Chattanooga United to Reduce Violence (CURV), a community violence intervention and prevention initiative (CVIPI). CURV takes a public health approach including wide-ranging strategies such as intervening in immediate threats of violence and addressing root causes of violence. In partnership with Chattanooga’s Community Safety and Gun Violence Prevention Division and local researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, RTI International will conduct a developmental evaluation (DE) of CURV. DE is an action research model with the primary purpose of gathering credible and useful information to make decisions about programs and address ongoing emergent factors. Our evaluation has three goals: (1) Conduct DE to assist CURV stakeholders with data-driven decision-making about their CVIPI; (2) use DE work to lay the foundation for future rigorous outcome evaluation of CURV; and (3) develop and disseminate resources and guidance for the field about practical application of DE for CVIPI. This study explores how and why CVIPI strategies go from intent to actualization and which strategies are realized or dropped, and identifies the new strategies that emerge and why. The evaluation will roll out in five phases over 3 years. Partnership engagement activities will recur throughout, while other activities are phase-specific. We will recruit a Community Advisory Group to ensure that the drivers of community violence are addressed with sensitivity and critical oversight. We will use the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research for Process Redesign (CFIR PR) to inform the design of data collection procedures and tools, and use CURV stakeholder interviews, community feedback, administrative data from partner systems (e.g., schools, law enforcement) and other data points to be determined to gather feedback on program implementation. DE will directly contribute to Chattanooga’s goal to reduce community violence through development of effective and sustainable CVIPI strategies. The anticipated reduction in violence will have positive effects on residents for generations to come. Given the novel application of DE to CVIPI work, the lessons learned from our experience will impact the CVIPI field by providing a roadmap for other burgeoning CVIPI practitioners and evaluators. CA/NCF