Shifting the Focus of the Victim Service Field from Measuring Outputs to Outcomes

Improving Services Through Collecting and Leveraging Data

In recent decades, the United States Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) and Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) have spearheaded efforts to build, grow, and professionalize the victim service field. As a result, our nation’s service infrastructure for victims of crime has advanced immensely. Despite these advancements, efforts to demonstrate the impact and effectiveness of victim services have lagged. Grantee and subgrantee data currently collected by OVC and OVW demonstrate how hard programs are working, both in terms of the number of victims being served and the range of services offered. However, output measures are not enough. To continue to advance the field, victim service providers (VSPs) must move from measuring outputs to outcomes—from anecdote to evidence—in demonstrating the impact of these programs on victims’ lives.

iMPRoVE (Measures for Providers Responding to Victimization Experiences) begins to make this possible by providing an extensively tested and validated instrument and a user-friendly software platform that enable VSPs to readily collect and analyze outcome and quality measures at no cost to users. It provides VSPs with a systematic way of listening to the voices of clients to ensure their needs are being met to the greatest extent possible. It helps to quantify the extent to which provider services meaningfully affect victims’ lives.

RTI partnered with the Justice Research and Information Network and the Georgia Statistical Analysis Center to help drive the victim service field from a focus on effort to a focus on results and effectiveness through iMPRoVE’s standardized approach to measuring the outcomes and quality of services across the field. Given the breadth and diversity of the victim service field, this was no small undertaking. After reviewing over 1,000 measures being used across the field, holding discussions with VSPs, victims/survivors, and stakeholders across the country, and conducting extensive pilot testing, the iMPRoVE platform was officially launched in September of 2023. It is currently used by hundreds of providers from across the country who have collected thousands of survey responses from victims/survivors.

What is iMPRoVE?

The iMPRoVE platform is a free customizable outcome measurement platform. It has built-in data collection and visualization tools for providers, agencies, and organizations that offer help or support for persons impacted by crime. The iMPRoVE tool supports:

• Measuring the impact of program services, including the extent of the physical, emotional, social, economic, and legal needs of persons impacted by crime were met by the services they received.
• Measuring service quality, including perceptions of accessibility and utility of services, referrals, and staff. 
• Allowing providers, agencies, and organizations to select measures that best fit the intended outcomes of their programs. 
• Using best practices in survey research and accounts for different types of service providers, agencies, and organizations having different intended outcomes of services. 
• Protecting the confidentiality of victims/survivors who complete the survey and the providers that register for an account. 
• Accessibility to victims/survivors with visual impairments and available in multiple languages.

Upon registering for an account, VSPs can customize their survey, and begin collecting feedback from survivors via a secure link that can be shared through text or email. Surveys are completed by victims/survivors on any internet-equipped device and securely transmitted back to the platform. The data are then available for providers download or explore on individual provider dashboards that show the affect the program has on those receiving services.

Providing Extensive Training and Resources to iMPRoVE Users

RTI and partners provide in depth trainings and resources to iMPRoVE users, so they are equipped with the knowledge they need to implement iMPRoVE within their agencies. Through tailored training and technical assistance (TTA), RTI helps onboard users to the platform, teach them how to onboard their staff and administer their iMPRoVE surveys, and demonstrate how to use both provider and public data to show the impact of their work. The RTI team has also developed on demand resources for providers, including an in depth users guide, brief how-to-videos, brief logistical guides, an implementation guide, and more. Training materials are publicly available on the ‘Learn’ page of the iMPRoVE website.

Customized TTA is also provided to states and coalitions interested in large-scale implementation of iMPRoVE. Additionally, RTI hosts an iMPRoVE Community of Practice (CoP) for Anti-Human Trafficking Service Providers. The CoP meets monthly to collaborate around implementing iMPRoVE.

iMPRoVE's Public Data Dashboard

The latest offering is the iMPRoVE public dashboard. Launched in November 2024,   the dashboard presents information about the outcomes and quality of victim services nationwide, from the perspective of the thousands of victims/survivors who complete the iMPRoVE survey. The public data dashboard can be used by:

• Service providers using iMPRoVE to see how their findings compare to other providers trying to achieve similar outcomes for victims and survivors 
• State Administering Agencies to identify where additional training or resources may be needed in their state or to advocate for additional funding 
• Coalitions and associations to help members benchmark their findings and showcase the importance of their services 
• Policy-makers to see the effect that victim services have on the lives of people impacted by crime Researchers considering outcomes as part of a larger evaluation and 
• Those who are interested in learning more about who receives victim services and what impact those services have on their lives.

The Importance of iMPRoVE for Victim Services

The OVC has continued to invest in programs and support their data collection and evaluation efforts. The iMPRoVE project extends these supports through offering an extensively tested and validated instrument and a user-friendly software platform for VSPs to readily collect and analyze how their programs change survivors' lives. This information provides them with a systemic way of listening to the voices of clients to ensure their needs are being met to the greatest extent possible.

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