Project Overview
The Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing (TXICFW) at the University of Texas at Austin collaborated with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) division to carry out a cross-site evaluation of the Healthy Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support (HOPES) program.
The 83rd Texas Legislature session increased funding for at-risk prevention programs for child abuse and neglect prevention. With this increased funding, the first round of Project HOPES provided grants to eight Texas communities to address child abuse and neglect prevention. Each of the eight sites implemented a variety of community-based and evidence-based interventions targeted at families with children between the ages of 0–5 years. Project HOPES was executed through three phases, known as HOPES I, HOPES II, and HOPES III, to total 24 sites by the end of 2017.
In addition to this program evaluation, TXICFW conducted quantitative analysis of historical PEI data to determine the overall effectiveness of prevention efforts.
The Project HOPES evaluation consisted of:
- Literature review and additional research on child maltreatment prevention
- Technical assistance and development of training materials
- Data collection in partnership with Project HOPES sites, including:
- Family, agency and community surveys
- Stakeholder interviews
- Data analysis and reporting of results
This project was completed in 2018. Please contact the Principal Investigator with any questions.
Project Staff
Monica Faulkner, Ph.D., LMSW, DirectorPrincipal Investigator
Swetha Nulu, MPH, PMP, Director of Project ManagementResearch Coordinator
Beth Gerlach, Ph.D., LCSW, Associate DirectorResearch Coordinator
Kate McKerlie, MSSW, MPH, Director of Communications & StrategyResearch CoordinatorProject Reports
Project Resources
Project Blogs
- What HOPES taught us: A summary of our four year-long evaluation of community-based child maltreatment prevention programs
- Welcome to Swetha Nulu, our new Research Coordinator!
- The Big 4: Why we need to deal with substance abuse, mental health, family violence and multigenerational trauma to prevent child abuse and neglect
- Strengthening Families & Communities in Texas through HOPES Programming
- Measuring Burnout in the Context of Something Greater Than the Self
- Evaluating Texas’ child maltreatment prevention program, Project HOPES: What we learned and where we will go
- Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention Across Texas: CFRI’s HOPES Program Evaluation Project
- Bridging the Gap to Help Families Heal: How the HOPES evaluation inspired us to put research to practice