RESEARCH AND EVALUATION PROPOSAL OF THE NORTH LAWNDALE COLLABORATIVE

Research Objective 1: Process Evaluation of the NLC Collaborative The NLC Collaborative, to the best of our knowledge, represents a truly unique effort in coordination and cooperation of community gun violence intervention efforts. Increasing coordination across the NLC partners is fundamental not only to the effort’s success but also quite likely the ground upon which any programmatic effect rests. Understanding the efficiency of this coordination is vital in understanding if the NLC is being implemented as intended and where barriers to service delivery exist. As such, N3 proposes to conduct a thorough process evaluation documenting the implementation of NLC to understand the ways in which the NLC efforts come together, evolve over time, adapt to new contexts and situations, and impact the delivery of services. A process evaluation of NLC requires a deep contextual analysis of observational and interview data with key stakeholders and participating organizations. This would include director observations and interviews with key stakeholders as well as a survey of NLC program participants. In the early/planning stage of the research process, N3 will also work with the NLC partners to explore the possibility of developing a logic model that systematically aligns programmatic goals with activities, outputs, and outcomes. Ideally such a model is developed during the development of a new program or intervention, however, if there is a strong desire and consensus among the NLC partners, N3 could help guide a logic model development process that can help the collaborative better describe, modify, and/or enhance its efforts. Research Objective 2: Understanding the NLC’s Impact on Participant and Community Outcomes. Beginning in 2022, NLC hopes to achieve its objective of a 20% reduction in gun violence in North Lawndale, by reaching an estimated 600 to 700 high- risk individuals within North Lawndale and connecting them to READI, CP4P, and CRED programming and services. Accordingly, assessing the NLC’s impact on individual and community levels of violence requires gathering consistent data on participants’ behaviors, experiences, and opinions and analyzing it within some scientific evaluation framework. Based on data presently available to N3, we estimate that there are approximately 240 active participants involved in outreach efforts in North Lawndale. Thus, the NLC’s goal represents a three-fold increase over the current efforts as well as perhaps one of the first attempts in the country (to our knowledge) trying to reach "saturation" within a single community. This objective, of course, seeks to address a common "scale up" problem from single programs (however promising) and rests on the hope that increasing overall resources and coordinating programmatic efforts can enhance the positive benefits and impact of programs.1,2 The most immediate research objectives in this area require determining: (1) exactly how many participants are reached and served by the NLC; (2) the type, breadth, and quality of services; and (3) participant take up, engagement, and attrition.