Through NIJ’s Measuring the Impact of Victim Services project, RTI International and project partners developed the Providers Responding to Victimization Experiences (iMPRoVE) platform. iMPRoVE is a rigorously tested, easy-to-use platform and survey tool that enables victim service providers (VSPs) to better understand whether the services provided to victims of crime are achieving their intended outcomes. iMPRoVE provides a low-burden survey that VSPs can administer to their clients to collect valuable information about the short-term outcomes of services and victims’ perceptions of how services were provided.
However, to continue to advance the field, VSPs must move from measuring outputs to outcomes, from anecdote to evidence in demonstrating the impact of these programs on victims’ lives. Victim outcome and satisfaction surveys are an essential tool for beginning to assess the effectiveness and quality of services, for justifying funding allocations and demonstrating responsible stewardship of funds, and for advocating for additional resources, as necessary. The overarching goal of this project is to drive the field from a focus on effort to a focus on results and effectiveness.
To provide the infrastructure needed to demonstrate the impact and effectiveness of victim services, the applicant proposes to develop and validate a trauma-informed, low-burden instrument that can be completed by VSP clients to measure outcomes, quality and utility of referrals provided, and satisfaction with the quality of services provided. This project will build off the lessons learned from the state of Georgia’s efforts to implement statewide outcome performance measures. The development of a standardized instrument and methodology will enable VSPs to assess whether outcome-oriented performance goals are being met and will facilitate the collection of national-level performance data. The study also includes an intuitive, freely available software application for VSPs to use for administering the survey instrument to clients and securely collecting, viewing, and exporting data in an easily accessible format. The project involves extensive cognitive testing to ensure that the questions are clear and consistently understood, and that the measures are valid and reliable; and a pilot test focused on identifying and addressing any issues related to the functionality of the platform. NCA/NCF
