Most often, our research and evaluation projects focus on understanding and improving within and between system responses to gender-based violence. Our work takes us into the criminal legal system, medical system, community-based organizations, and state agencies. Because we are committed to social justice, we also use our research and evaluation skills on projects that may not focus on gender-based violence, but similarly interrogate structural violence and how we can transform our systems and settings.
Examining the SANE and TeleSANE patient experience: An evaluation and tool development
Sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) are specially trained to provide expert, comprehensive, first-response medical forensic care for sexual assault survivors. While SANEs have traditionally provided care in person, many communities across the country are now also using telehealth technology to provide their patients and on-site clinicians access to SANE care and expertise. While the practice of TeleSANE is promising and early evaluations demonstrate providers’ satisfaction with the model, little is known about the patient experience. Even in-person SANEs often do not have the opportunity to learn from their patients about their experiences so as to inform care provision. This project is an evaluation of the patient experience with in-person SANE and TeleSANE care. In this mixed methods evaluation, we center sexual assault survivors to learn about their experiences receiving care, and to develop, pilot, and finalize a patient experience assessment tool that can be used by in-person SANE and TeleSANE programs to support ongoing monitoring and improvement.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women
An Implementation of the eSANE Model: Scaling & Evaluating a Telehealth Approach to Serve Sexual Assault Survivors in Rural & Indigenous-Serving Critical Access Hospitals
Critical access hospitals (CAH) often serve as the only healthcare provider in isolated, rural areas. Constrained by resource and staffing shortages, CAHs are often unable to provide access to sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) for sexual assault survivors who seek care post-assault. This results in such patients receiving suboptimal care or being asked to travel many miles to another hospital. Telehealth is now being used to provide patients and on-site clinicians access to SANE care and expertise. This project is an implementation evaluation of one telehealth model that has been adopted by about fifty CAHs in rural communities across five states. In collaboration with Dr. Bridget Diamond-Welch of the University of South Dakota, this sequential multimethod multiple case study evaluates implementation fidelity, adaptations, and plans for sustainability across these CAH sites. This evaluation will expand our collective understanding of how such models are implemented and provide recommendations for their successful development and implementation in different communities.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women
Towards Ending School Discipline (TESE) Project
The link between exclusionary school discipline (i.e., suspensions and expulsions) and later involvement in the criminal legal and juvenile justice systems is well documented. Of course, not all young people experience this school-to-prison pipeline in the same way, or even at all. Black young people, indigenous young people, and young people with disabilities are disproportionately harmed by these practices. Racism, sexism, and ableism also intersect to create unique experiences for and patterns between specific groups of young people (e.g., Black girls as compared to White girls and Black boys). Illinois is among the first states in the country to pass comprehensive discipline legislation that, in part, sought to reduce the inequitable use of exclusionary school discipline. In collaboration with Dr. Kate Zinsser and Dr. Ryne Estabrook of the University of Illinois Chicago, this sequential explanatory mixed methods project evaluates the extent to which these policy interventions reduce the rates and inequitable use of exclusionary school discipline and identify characteristics of settings that demonstrate these improvements. This evaluation will provide insight into the effectiveness of public policy interventions intended to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.
Funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation