Program theory and logic model to address the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment

Social work and child welfare practitioners have long confronted the reality that child maltreatment and domestic violence often coexist within families. However, services for the victims of these types of family violence have been fragmented, forcing victims to go to multiple agencies for assistance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the program theory and logic model developed to guide evaluation of the St. Louis County Greenbook Collaboration to Address Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment, together with an assessment of the use of this approach as applied to a comprehensive community initiative. Both the program theory guiding the collaboration and the logic model developed from the program theory are described. Data are drawn from qualitative documents produced in conjunction with collaboration participants. The findings suggest that a program theory and logic model approach to program planning is difficult to develop with large collaborations. Such methods may not be useful to program stakeholders. Further, attempting to use a graphic to portray a program may do a disservice to the complex ways in which many of the strategies and outcomes overlap in a community-wide collaboration.