Our Services
Applied Research
Research can be highly theoretical until it is applied to real-world conditions. CPRD has a long history of creating and maintaining successful collaborative, real-world partnerships with local, state, and national organizations, agencies, and businesses conducting prevention work across the country. These relationships help us to more directly connect basic research to our goal of improving the quality of systems and programs that serve communities, families, and children.
Example
As part of its work with the middle-grades schools across the country who are seeking to use data in their school improvement planning processes, CPRD created a set of user-friendly data reports. These reports provide middle-grades schools with the results of surveys completed by faculty, students, and parents in their buildings. The goal of the reports are to provide schools with reliable and systematic information about practices (parent communication; classroom instructional strategies), functioning (collaboration opportunities; decision-making), and outcomes (school climate; distributive leadership; student belonging) for use in planning and monitoring continuous improvement efforts.
Data Processing
CPRD has a Data Services Department that can process small, medium, and large survey design, data entry, scanning, and report generation projects for faculty, staff and community members.
The Data Services team is highly experienced at coordinating and performing specialized data processing tasks related to online survey design, paper survey design, electronic scanning of surveys, data entry of paper surveys, report generation, and the creation of datasets. They can also print paper surveys, ship them to sites or respondents, and receive and process them upon completion.
Our team will track completion rates and consent forms for documentation and follow-up. Additionally, our team can conduct test case development and quality assurance for new or upgraded databases.
Evaluation Services
Evaluation can be defined as the periodic assessment of efficiency, performance, relevance, and impact of a project or program in the context of stated objectives. CPRD offers evaluation services to help you determine the impact of your efforts, and what you can do to improve your program.
Example
Evaluation of an afterschool program: by surveying students and parents and teachers, and then accessing and linking report card and program attendance data, we were able to show that a multi-school effort in one Midwestern town was raising grades, empowering students, reducing behavioral problems, and helping parents feel connected to their child’s school. This information can be used in the school (informing students, teachers, administrators), for parents (PTA, newsletters), for writing grant reports (to current funders), and for new grant proposals.
Policy Analysis
As one of the research centers of the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois, CPRD seeks to support public policy by improving state and community capacity for prevention; wellness, prevention, and educational practices both within school and after school; and policies, practices, and decision making based on research. We believe strongly in data-based policy making, and CPRD has more than two decades of experience in policy assessment–both development and implementation–and making recommendations for improving the academic and social outcomes of youth and families.
Example
CPRD has partnered with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois to research the cost of methamphetamine to the state of Illinois. Our analysis covered a wide range of costs to children, families, and communities, from its immediate cost in law enforcement to more delayed or subtle effects such as lost work productivity.