21st Century State Incentive Grant Evaluation

The 21st Century State Incentive Grant (21 SIG) project is an effort by the Wyoming Department of Health Substance Abuse Division (SAD) and the Wyoming Department of Education Health and Safety Unit (WDE) to provide prevention and academic improvement programming across Wyoming by braiding four funding streams into one grant project. WYSAC plays an important role in this project by not only providing evaluation research at the state, community, and program levels, but by also serving on the management team overseeing this project. The original 21 SIG project funded 26 sub-recipient communities and implemented more than 180 programs. In 2004, additional monies were distributed by WDE to add four new communities and 30 new programs. WDE will again be distributing additional funds in 2005 to add seven new communities (and an, as yet, undetermined number of new programs). Additionally, SAD was awarded the Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG) from the U.S. Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in October, 2004. The SPF SIG will allow Wyoming to develop a comprehensive statewide strategic plan to direct and monitor substance abuse prevention efforts across the state. WYSAC will be heavily involved in this project as it co-authored Wyoming’s grant application.

In promoting the goals of the original 21 SIG project and its many related projects, WYSAC has trained each sub-recipient community on evaluation, has gathered and analyzed process and outcome data for each program, and has assisted the sub-recipient communities in using evaluation data to improve programming and to plan for sustainability.

Depending upon the funding source for a given program, program outcomes have been measured 1) by pre and post-test surveying program participants on risk and protective factor constructs targeted by the state and communities, or 2) by collecting teacher reports on the academic performance of participants. Preliminary data show that for every community, targeted risk factors decreased and targeted protective factors increased. Moreover, teacher reports show that classroom behavior has improved and that Math and Language Arts proficiency ratings and grades have also improved.

Project Team