REACH Initiative receives the Maine Campus Compact President’s Leadership Award

The REACH (Research and Evaluation Assistance for Change) Initiative, created in 2011 by Maryann Corsello, M.S., Ph.D., has been chosen to receive the President’s Leadership Award from Maine Campus Compact, a collation of 17 member campuses whose purpose is to promote civic engagement among students and faculty within institutions of higher learning. REACH was selected as a winner of the award for its contributions to community service, service-learning and civic engagement efforts.

REACH is the first state-wide collaborative to sustain community-based program evaluation activities in the areas of substance abuse, sexual assault and gender violence, teen pregnancy, and delinquency prevention.  It began as a way to continue the gains in evaluation capacity made by community programs initially supported by the AGTO (Assets-Getting to Outcomes) project, an implementation support intervention funded by the RAND Corporation.  

The institutions of higher education that are members of the REACH Collaborative provide support for evaluation activities through faculty-supervised student work. College students receive powerful learning experiences in prevention research while providing evaluation help to community prevention programs.