In recent years, DPH Injury and Violence Surveillance Unit (IVSU) in the Community, Family Health, and Prevention Branch (CFHPB) has been monitoring trends in homicides and firearm related homicides through a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded surveillance project referred to in Connecticut as the Connecticut Violent Death Reporting System (CTVDRS). Beginning in 2020, CTVDRS data trends indicated a sharp increase in homicides soon after the COVID-19 pandemic came to Connecticut in March 2020. The sharp increase in homicides was sustained through 2022. Many communities in Connecticut, like others across the country, experienced increases in community gun violence. Unquestionably, the pandemic has had a significant effect on this issue by exacerbating challenges like economic and housing insecurity, dislocation of youth, and limited mobility that aggravated interpersonal tensions, challenging the abilities of law enforcement, public and nonprofit organizations, and community groups to respond to the needs of people experiencing increases in violence. The purpose of the RFP is to secure an experienced and skillful Public Health Program Evaluator to evaluate the DPH-identified community-based organizations’ activities to address gun violence intervention and prevention in their communities. The selected Public Health Program Evaluator will conduct a performance assessment of up to ten of the DPH-identified Community-Based Organization (CBO) programs and measure the effectiveness of the strategies implemented during the CBOs’ contract period. The Public Health Program Evaluator's role will include working with DPH and staffs, managing the CBO programs to: identify output and process measures, conduct an asset map of community violence prevention and intervention services, and design the Program Evaluation and Evaluation Dissemination Plans to demonstrate how the proposed projects will meet short, intermediate, and long-term outcomes and how the evaluation findings will be shared.
