Many third sector organisations provide support or run services that prevent things happening. However, prevention is hard to evaluate. We are often asked questions such as:
- How do we measure something that hasn’t happened?
- What does a positive approach to prevention look like in practice?
- How do we evaluate long term when funding is short term?
This guide shares learning from our work about how to evaluate prevention. We suggest approaches you can take and share examples from the third sector.
For third sector prevention case studies and guidance on evaluating prevention in specific areas, such as health inequalities or violence against women, please see the prevention page of the ESS website.
‘I have found this resource on evaluating preventative work very helpful for my role. The main focus for my team is to prevent pet owners affected by pet poverty from having to surrender their dogs and/or these pets not receiving the appropriate care.’
Life Raluy, Outreach Programme Manager, Edinburgh Dog & Cat home