Invest Time and Resources in Evaluation
A strong evaluation can reveal the impacts of the public awareness campaign and improve future campaign efforts.
Additionally, evaluating your public awareness campaign provides stakeholders and funding entities with information on the impact of their resources.
- There needs to be a clear justification for why the public awareness campaign would be beneficial in modifying awareness of, beliefs about, and attitudes toward the prevention of child abuse and neglect.
In the past, public education campaigns have yielded varying and inconclusive results with some advocating that community education and mobilization strategies be integrated into other primary prevention programs (e.g., home visiting, family resources centers)1. Although most community mobilization and media campaigns have not been subject to rigorous evaluation, some research has documented enhanced parental self-efficacy and knowledge of concepts and actions2.
Thoughtful and thorough attention to the following questions will be helpful in developing a strong evaluation plan.
- What are the campaign’s expected outcomes?
- How do we know if we have achieved the identified outcomes?
- Is the campaign intending to change understanding/knowledge, attitudes and social norms, or behaviors?
- For example, clearly defined behavioral goals or desired rates of the behavior in the population help to identify appropriate evaluation measures. See the table below on some general topic areas, possible measures, and question examples.
- How will the message be delivered to your audience, directly or indirectly through other sources?
The campaign pathways include direct exposure to the campaign messages, institutional transmission in that messages are directed to specific social institutions for change, and social diffusion whereby someone hears the message and shares with others.
- Who is the target audience(s) and are we reaching the target audience?
Most campaigns identify their intended audience more specifically and expect campaign effects to vary across subpopulations within the target audience. The universal, one size fits all approach to public awareness campaigns does not work.
- How much exposure is needed before effects can be expected?
If your campaign is relying on specific social institutions like family service agencies to maximize effect, then the evaluation will be complex as there will be multiple measures for the specific social institution and the target audience. If simple information is directly shared, then keep in mind assumptions you are making about the target audience in that you think they are ready for information and the message solves a known problem.
- What strategies are we going to use to gather data?
- How will we use data to inform our campaign?
For example, we will use data for deciding when changes to the messages need to be made or stay with the same message.
Logic models are one way to organize answers to these five questions and should be created at the beginning of a public awareness campaign.
Public awareness campaigns do not yet have research evidence demonstrating impact on rates of child abuse and neglect victimization or perpetration but instead are supported by evidence indicating impacts on risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect (e.g., parenting stress, parental mental health).
For example, the Wisconsin Five for Families public awareness toolkit was designed to support partners’ efforts to include the language and materials of the five essential strengths that keep all families strong in their existing outreach efforts. The statewide public awareness campaign, a universal prevention strategy by the Wisconsin Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board, has the primary goal of increasing knowledge of the Protective Factors Framework. https://fiveforfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/FFF-Toolkit_May-2019.pdf
In March 2023, FRIENDS hosted a Peer Learning Call that included presentations from New Hampshire and Missouri on their work to measure and report on social media and public awareness campaigns. The Child Welfare Information Gateway contributed to a FRIENDS Peer Learning Call in July 2021 that offers some methods for measuring exposure such as tracking and website monitoring. Below are some additional metrics you may want to consider.
| Areas/topics to measure | Possible measures | Question Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness of campaign message | Unaided awareness - general questions about the campaign topic | What have you seen or heard lately about the prevention of child abuse? |
| Aided awareness - questions specifically about the campaign | What have you seen or heard lately about the Strengthening Families campaign? | |
| Proven awareness – questions about where the campaign was seen | Where did you actually read or hear about the Strengthening Families campaign? | |
| Target audience participation | Rates of participation based on estimates of eligible individuals in the target audience | Of those who attended an event, what percentage signed up to identify if they were eligible for public assistance? |
| Changes in behavior in target audience(s) | Percentage change of eligible individuals who did the behavior | Of those who heard the message, what percentage reported making a call to a parent resource warmline asking for help? |
| Percentage increase or decrease | How much did calls or text messages to a parent resource warmline increase during the campaign? | |
| Changes in behavioral intentions | Percentage increase or decrease | How many parents intend to call the warmline if they need resources? |
| Changes in behavior in secondary audiences, or individuals who were not originally included in the target audience | Behavior changes in doctors, physicians, teachers, social workers, therapists | How many recommend to parents they see or serve to reach out to the parent resource warmline if the parents need resources? |
| Changes in knowledge | Specific facts | How many children are affected by child abuse each year? |
| Awareness of specific recommendations | How many indicate that asking for help is ok? | |
| Changes in belief indicators | Attitudes | How many indicate that getting help for mental health issues can promote resilience? |
| Opinions | How many indicated that child neglect is more likely in families experiencing an overload of stress such as financial insecurity, housing instability, and hunger? | |
| Values | How many indicate that we have a shared obligation to support families to foster children’s potential? |
1Marie-Helene Gagne, Ariane Belanger-Gravel, Marie-Eve Clement, and Julie Poissant, “Recall and Understanding of a Communication Campaign Designed to Promote Positive Parenting and Prevent Child Maltreatment.” Preventive Medicine Reports, 12, (2018): 191-197.
2Brenda Jones Harden, Cassandra Simons, Michelle Johnson-Motoyama, and Richard Barth, “Scanning the Child Maltreatment Landscape.” Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Focus on Poverty, Volume 37, Number 2, (September 2021): https://www.irp.wisc.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Focus-on-Poverty-37-2c.pdf