What are we trying to understand?
CSAW uses research and evaluation to understand young people’s experiences of violence, safety, belonging, and wellbeing; examine how prevention efforts work in real-world settings; and learn what helps communities strengthen the conditions that make harm less likely.
We bring rigorous research methods together with community knowledge and lived experience. What we learn helps inform prevention practice, strengthen ongoing work, and identify questions that need further study.
Learning Directly From Oregon Youth
The Oregon Child Abuse Prevalence Study (OCAPS)
The Oregon Child Abuse Prevalence Study is designed to measure young people’s experiences of abuse, neglect, identity-based violence, safety, resilience, and related conditions—and to learn directly from youth about what they believe could help prevent harm.
By collecting this information over time, OCAPS can help Oregon better understand where harm is occurring, identify disparities and emerging patterns, inform prevention priorities, and assess whether young people’s experiences of safety and wellbeing are changing.
Learning From Prevention in Practice
Seven Years of Evaluating Protect Our Children
CSAW conducted a seven-year developmental evaluation of Protect Our Children, a community-based child sexual abuse prevention initiative implemented across rural Oregon and Siskiyou County, California.
Using more than 10,000 pre- and post-surveys and comparison surveys, along with focus groups and partner feedback, the evaluation examined changes in knowledge, attitudes, prevention behaviors, and broader organizational and community effects over time.
Learning From Long-Term Systems Change
Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force: 20-Year Retrospective
CSAW partnered with the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force to examine two decades of statewide work addressing sexual violence.
Drawing on key informant interviews and extensive document review, the retrospective explored how the Task Force developed, how collaboration and leadership contributed to systems change, what helped sustain the work over time, and what priorities remain for the future.
Intimate Partner Violence Screening Research
CSAW has conducted research examining universal screening for intimate partner violence in clinical settings and how screening practices can better support conversations about violence, safety, and care.
Universal Screening for Intimate Partner Violence: A Systematic Review
This systematic review examined the use of universal intimate partner violence screening in therapy and health care settings, including the evidence supporting screening and the barriers that have limited its consistent adoption in practice.
CSAW has also translated this body of research into screening, assessment, education, and trauma-sensitive approaches for clinical practice.
From Learning to Action
Research and evaluation are most useful when what we learn helps strengthen prevention in practice. Findings from OCAPS, long-term evaluation, community partnerships, and youth and survivor perspectives are helping CSAW identify conditions that communities can deliberately strengthen to make violence less likely.
One example is CSAW’s Youth and Survivor-Inspired Promotive Action Plan, which brings these sources of knowledge together into practical directions for prevention.
