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Business News

Joe Willey Presents at Community-Sharing Event on Methamphetamine Abuse, Suicide, and Domestic Violence in Indian Country

April 16, 2012 (North Bethesda, MD). On March 1, Project Director Joe Willey attended a Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative (MSPI) community-sharing event on methamphetamine abuse, suicide, and domestic violence. The event focused on how grantees can improve evaluations of their programs. The goal was to help grantees become more aware of how conducting evaluations can help ensure that certain goals are met and that all resources are being used to achieve desired outcomes.

Attendees were from JBS’s MSPI project and from the Domestic Violence Prevention Initiative (DVPI). The DVPI project uses congressionally appropriated funds to implement a nationally coordinated domestic violence initiative in Indian Country.

The JBS contract with the Indian Health Service’s Division of Behavioral Health is to evaluate MSPI and provide technical assistance. The goals of MSPI and DVPI in the Navajo Nation is to increase awareness and a broader understanding of what can be done to address domestic violence and meth abuse.

The event was held March 1 and 2 in Window Rock, AZ (the capital of the Navajo Nation). According to Joe, 40 participants attended his presentation titled “Evaluation Design and Tools.” Joe set out to discuss the importance of meeting organizational goals as well as to show how evaluations are not just about judging outcomes. They should be used as tools to improve work in certain areas.

“Evaluations are about using information to improve programs and create knowledge. When people hear they are getting evaluated, they assume they are getting judged or graded, not helped,” he said.

Joe’s presentation was designed to move grantees past that initial assumption to where they will learn from the evaluation process and that their programs will benefit from the information learned in the evaluations.

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JBS International, Inc., is a women-owned business that provides a broad and diverse set of management and information technology services to public- and private-sector clients. Since 1985, JBS has worked with clients to successfully design solutions that focus on opportunities and address challenges—always with an emphasis on understanding the specific health, social, and educational needs of people across the lifespan and from all walks of life. Our work includes health IT, research and evaluation, international public health, policy analysis, and communications services.

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