A participatory approach to building capacity of treatment programs to engage in evaluation

Building the capacity of community-based organizations to engage in evaluation activities has been of primary importance to the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) in its mission to improve treatment services and alleviate substance abuse in communities across the country. One strategy that CSAT uses to encourage this is to engage grantees in evaluation activities so that they are intimately involved in all aspects of the evaluation process. The CSAT Targeted Capacity Expansion (TCE) grantees had an opportunity to participate in the development, design, and execution of an evaluation of their clients' treatment outcomes. Through this participatory approach, the grantees improved their capacities to conduct evaluation and provided input to the field on treatment outcomes for their specific populations.