Evaluation Research in Context: A Community Application for Youth and Family Programs

Despite extensive literature on evaluation strategies and models, few published reports exist relative to practical applications of such strategies. This article follows one community as it mobilized around youth issues, resulting in a pregnancy prevention program. The intent of this article is to outline the application of evaluation concepts and strategies and to examine the effect of the larger program development and evaluation processes rather than to present specific results of the evaluation data collected over the course of this work. The utility and merit of evaluation concepts will be discussed as the authors follow a small southwestern rural community over nearly 2 years.