Identifying Gaps in Victim and Prevention Services for Multiple Forms of Violence: Results of a State-Level Needs Assessment

Recent research has highlighted that the most efficacious means of preventing violence may be to focus on a set of risk and protective factors shared among multiple forms of perpetration (e.g. sexual violence, child abuse). Entities planning new anti-violence initiatives/programming could thus benefit from conducting efforts like needs assessments with broad rather than narrow networks of violence stakeholders. A statewide Violence Needs Assessment Survey was conducted with a broad network of violence stakeholders across the state of Iowa (n=657) to achieve this purpose. The needs assessment utilized multiple forms of recruitment and snowball sampling as a means of engaging stakeholders from violence sub-fields including intimate partner violence, sexual violence, child abuse, suicide, bullying, community/gang violence and other areas. Specific domains covered in the survey included familiarity and use of data, quantity and quality of programming, perceived collaboration levels between various stakeholder groups, and a variety of other perceptions of the field. Respondents were asked to respond specifically about an area of violence with which they were most involved either professionally through work or personally in their free time. Survey results showed many differences in how stakeholders who identify as working in specific sub-fields of violence view the issues facing their sub-fields and the state of Iowa. Differences between stakeholders within a violence sub-field were also found based on whether individuals self- identified as working in victim services or as working in prevention. Statistically significant mean differences between groups will be presented and explored.