Weed and Seed National Evaluation

JRSA received funding from the Community Capacity Development Office (CCDO) to manage a national evaluation of the Weed and Seed initiative. Research Triangle Institute (RTI) was chosen by a peer-review process to conduct the 30-month evaluation, which began on May 1, 2007. A summary of the evaluation is provided below. For more information, contact JRSA Research Director Stan Orchowsky.

RTI International is conducting an evaluation of the National Weed and Seed (W&S) Strategy. The evaluation will include: (1) Process Evaluation, to assess implementation of locally developed strategies and (2) Outcome Evaluation, to assess W&S impacts using rigorous statistical and spatial analyses. Process and outcome information will be integrated to explore how different aspects of local W&S initiatives lead to successful outcomes.

The evaluation will assess the W&S key components of Law Enforcement, Community Policing, Prevention/Intervention/Treatment, and Neighborhood Restoration; the core principles of Collaboration, Coordination, Community Participation, and Leveraged Resources; and the critical role of the U.S. Attorney.

The evaluation employs a two-tiered design. (1) For all sites RTI will formulate a broad, comprehensive overview of processes and outcomes across the national W&S Initiative, based on data from the W&S Data Center, other central resources (e.g., U.S. Census), and a web-based survey of W&S stakeholders. (2) In 13 Sentinel Sites, RTI will develop an in-depth understanding of site processes and outcomes through analysis of additional information derived from (a) a survey of target and comparison community residents, (b) site visits, (c) document review, and (d) commercially available data on local business activity.

The process evaluation will include descriptive analysis and, in Sentinel Sites, social network analysis and case studies. The all-sites outcome evaluation analysis plan will use longitudinal growth models to provide within-site (repeated measures) and between-site (W&S vs. entire jurisdiction) comparisons to evaluate the impact of W&S. These models will also test the impact of site-level factors and implementation measures on changes in outcomes. The Sentinel Site outcome analysis will employ a nested cross-sectional ANCOVA model for paired data, i.e., matched pairs of W&S target areas and carefully identified comparison areas. RTI will also use GIS to integrate a wide variety of geospatial data and to create maps of these data that portray differences among W&S sites and changes within sites, relative to comparison areas. GIS will be used to measure spatially related variables to assess W&S effects on fundamental neighborhood characteristics, including economic indicators.