EVALCORP has had the opportunity to work with Ventura County Behavioral Health (VCBH) since 2006, and that long view has allowed our team to generate insights that shape how we approach the work. We have led program evaluation and strategic planning projects for several VCBH substance use and prevention programs, including:
- Social Host Ordinance Program Evaluation: We have developed two of the only comprehensive evaluations of the Social Host Ordinance Law, which prohibits providing alcohol to minors at private youth settings and parties. Findings from these evaluations are often requested across counties within California and nationally to inform policy, enforcement, and youth-safety efforts.
- Place of Last Drink Survey (POLD): The POLD Survey was created in 2001 by VCBH Prevention Services to obtain information about drinking and driving behaviors among those arrested for DUI in Ventura County. After about five years of fielding the survey, EVALCORP was contracted to process the data, analyze the results, and share findings and recommendations. The database was considered a gold standard. Over 43,000 surveys were collected, which provided a large enough sample to conduct analyses that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
- Overdose Prevention Program: We have supported the data-driven expansion of the County’s Overdose Prevention Program through several initiatives. We designed and implemented naloxone kit surveys and inventories, and facilitated timely and actionable cross-agency data sharing through the Community Overdose Awareness & Solutions Team (COAST). These efforts enabled rapid, targeted naloxone deployment to areas of greatest need.
- Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES): Using existing California CURES data, we’ve analyzed Ventura County’s Schedule II–V controlled-substance dispensing trends from 2014 through 2023. Developed in collaboration with County experts, our report categorizes drug types and highlights prescribing patterns. This information is used by healthcare providers, regulatory boards, and law-enforcement to prevent overdoses by identifying high-risk prescribing trends, guiding targeted interventions, and shaping evidence-based policies.
- Opioid Settlement Fund (OSF) Evaluation: Most recently, we were invited to serve as the contracted evaluator for VCBH’s Coordinated Opioid Settlement Response. In this role, we lead the evaluation of all countywide opioid prevention activities funded by the Opioid Settlement Fund. Our work includes developing data collection tools, gathering and analyzing data, and reporting on the impact of these funds to help guide future strategies.
Benefits of a Long-Term Evaluation Partnership
What we’re most proud of in this nearly two-decade partnership isn’t just the reports or the data—it’s the trust that we have developed with VCBH over time. This trust creates the space for us to do our best work and has allowed us to take a leadership role in assisting VCBH as they develop data-informed prevention strategies within the Ventura County community. We help the VCBH team connect the dots between data and people, whether that means strengthening prevention efforts, supporting strategies that address overdose, or making shared information more meaningful. We’re proud to partner with VCBH to support their community-centered change.
Tracking the Impact of Opioid Settlement Programs with Program Evaluation
A significant milestone in our partnership was being invited by County leadership to evaluate the County’s Opioid Settlement Funds (OSF), based on our multi-agency experience and long-standing partnership. Ventura County has deployed its OSF in a number of ways, including programs that support and facilitate Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment expansion, overdose awareness for vulnerable populations, early interventions for young people, and overdose prevention for justice-involved individuals.
This new overdose prevention funding stream came with rigorous guidelines and a strong focus on measurable results and community impact. To meet these guidelines, we apply the Results-Based Accountability (RBA) framework. An RBA framework helps organizations focus on improving the lives of people in a community (population results) and on improving how well their programs and services work (performance measures). It starts with the desired outcomes and works backward to figure out the best ways to achieve them. We use this framework to define clear, population-level outcomes such as fewer overdose deaths and higher treatment engagement. OSF stakeholders can then adjust strategies and maximize the impact on Ventura County’s community health based on these findings.
Additionally, we have worked closely with partners to leverage insights based on data from multiple sources, some of which had not previously been combined in this way. The collaborative process has made the findings stronger, more visible, and more meaningful for the broader community across the continuum of care.
Tailoring Our Evaluation and Strategic Planning Approaches to Meet Community Priorities
Evaluating large community-based substance use treatment and prevention initiatives is a large and important task. This task comes with the challenge of making the data speak in ways that reflect real people and complex communities. One of our ongoing efforts has been to dig deep enough into local data to understand what’s happening at the neighborhood or ZIP code level, then helping community stakeholders see and respond to those patterns. We also strive to find the right balance between quantitative and qualitative data to ensure that the numbers are clear, but the stories aren’t lost. That kind of evaluation problem-solving takes time, listening, and trust, and we take pride in doing it well.
Across our many collaborative projects with VCBH, our consultants leverage local insights to understand each community’s context and priorities. We design data collection based on community needs. We focus on building relationships, listening closely, and using methods that reflect the experiences of the people most affected. Whether through listening sessions, interviews, or adjusting tools to be more culturally responsive, we aim to make the process feel useful and grounded in local experience.
With VCBH, we’re fortunate to work alongside a team that’s deeply connected to the community and committed to prevention, which strengthens the work in every way. We hope this generative partnership continues for many years to come!