SERVICES & CAPABILITIES
SPF-PFS/Rx Evaluation & Technical Assistance
We handle evaluation, data coordinator, and epidemiologist roles, so you can focus on providing innovative prevention services!
Substance misuse is having detrimental effects on communities across the US. We can alleviate and avoid these impacts through the implementation and evaluation of effective prevention programs, practices, and policies, such as those that are supported by SAMHSA’s SPF-PFS and SPF-Rx funding. OMNI has served as the state evaluator for the SPF-PFS or SPF-Rx grants in Wyoming, Colorado, Alabama, and Virginia, helping these states identify community needs, select strategies to implement, and monitor their effectiveness at addressing grant goals.
We think outside the box on how to measure innovative grant activities and offer reporting that goes above and beyond federal requirements to highlight prevention needs and successes with various audiences.
OMNI teams have expertise working with various data collection systems, and dedicated resources and expertise focused on the prevention workforce (including certified SAPST trainers on staff).
We work directly with staff to grow their evaluation skills. Community providers/coalitions benefit from OMNI trainings such as Evaluation 101 and Getting Started with Data Visualization to improve the quality of their evaluation activities.
Why Work with OMNI?
OMNI takes a role of active partnership with our clients—we pair methods and content expertise to be a thought partner, rather than merely collecting data to meet grant requirements. Our holistic approach involves working with states and their funded prevention partners to assess and build capacity for data-driven prevention and evaluation. We take the time to assess community capacity and motivations to engage in evaluation, as well as the data-focused questions that are most meaningful to state decision-makers. We structure our evaluation design and associated support to streamline the data collection burden, focus on the most important information, and provide usable and actionable data back to the state and communities. Our wraparound technical assistance is developed to center equity, build evaluation capacity, and support our partners in driving change to meaningfully impact prevention priorities. We value our collaboration with clients to bring their innovative approaches to life and share the successes of their work.
Examples of Our Work
WYOMING SPF-PFS
The Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) received SPF-PFS funding in 2020 and distributes these funds to all 23 counties across the state with a focus on leveraging community resources to reduce underage alcohol use and youth and young adult marijuana use. OMNI has served as the state evaluator for Wyoming’s SPF-PFS grant since 2020 to design and implement a comprehensive process and outcomes evaluation. OMNI also created and maintains a logic model and evaluation plan that compiles state-level data related to grant priorities and worked closely with the WDH to select indicators that most appropriately represent the local needs and context. OMNI provided training and technical assistance to each county to replicate the logic model and evaluation plan with their local data and continues to update these documents in collaboration with the community prevention specialists (CPS) annually. OMNI has also implemented coalition readiness and effectiveness assessments to support each county in identifying ways to strengthen their local prevention coalition to maximize impact on prevention goals and an Evaluation Skills and Interest Inventory to assess CPS’ evaluation capabilities and opportunities for greater support and training.
ALABAMA SPF-Rx
The Alabama Department of Mental Health (ADMH) received SPF-Rx funding in 2021 and distributes grant funds to prevention providers in four counties to plan, implement, and evaluate prevention strategies and activities focused on preventing and/or decreasing prescription drug misuse among young adults. In addition to that focus, the grant seeks to improve capacity and infrastructure in communities with health disparities, less access to care, and poorer behavioral health outcomes.
OMNI has served as the evaluator for Alabama’s SPF-Rx grant since 2021, providing a process and outcome evaluation that includes quantitative (e.g. surveys and indicator data) and qualitative (e.g. key informant interviews, focus groups) data collection, evaluation technical assistance, capacity building, and grant management support to ensure adherence to all federal reporting requirements. As a part of this work, OMNI created and maintains state and local-level logic models that outline prevention priorities and track relevant indicator data to show progress toward grant goals. OMNI reviews implementation progress reports from providers and supports ADMH in all required data entry into SPARS (SAMHSA’s federal reporting system). OMNI also provides training to prevention providers to increase their evaluation capacity and ability to implement each step of the SPF.
VIRGINIA SPF-PFS
The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) received SPF-PFS funding in 2015 and distributed these funds to nine high-need communities to address prescription drug misuse and heroin use among youth aged 12-25 years old. OMNI served as the evaluator of Virginia’s SPF-PFS efforts from 2016-2020, leading the design and implementation of a mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) state-wide and cross-site evaluation, including the identification of measures and provision of technical assistance. OMNI’s team supported communities in completing needs assessments to identify local prevention needs, develop logic models illustrating prevention goals, and write evaluation plans documenting the evaluation data to be collected and analyzed throughout the implementation phases of the project. As a component of the PFS evaluation, OMNI also began facilitating the Virginia State Epidemiological Outcomes Work Group (SEOW), a group of behavioral health professionals representing agencies and organizations across the state. This group contributes data that serves as the foundation for the Virginia Social Indicator Summary (VASIS) Dashboard, a hub for behavioral health-related data that is used by sub-grantees and partners across the state. These efforts have helped to transform Virginia substance use prevention into a data-driven system by making local data available and accessible for needs assessments and strategic planning. OMNI continues to serve as the evaluator for Virginia’s Substance Use Block Grant and State Opioid Response Grants; continues to lead the SEOW and maintain the VASIS dashboard; and coordinates all federal reporting, including SPARS and GPRA submissions.
SPF-PFS/Rx Grant Evaluation Leadership Team
Katie Gelman, DrPH, MPH
Senior Vice President
Katie Gelman is a Senior Vice President at OMNI, a member of the Executive Management Team, and is responsible for overseeing OMNI’s portfolio of projects in Behavioral Health and Community Health. This work includes numerous SAMHSA funded evaluation and capacity building efforts spanning multiple states and across the continuum of care. She brings a public health lens to evaluation efforts, centering equitable evaluation within qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method approaches. Since joining OMNI in 2006, Dr. Gelman has led numerous assessment, strategic planning, and evaluation contracts at state and local levels spanning issues such as substance misuse, chronic disease, HIV/AIDS, maternal/child health, and opioid abatement. She holds a Doctor of Public Health degree in Community and Behavioral Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from the University of Colorado School of Public Health, and a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University.
Julia Simhai, MPH (she/her)
Director
Julia Simhai is a Director at OMNI who has held oversight roles on several federal grant evaluations across the substance use continuum of care, including the State Opioid Response Grant in Virginia; Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grants in Wyoming, Virginia and Colorado; Partnerships for Success grants in Wyoming and Virginia; as well as regional opioid abatement initiatives in Colorado. Ms. Simhai’s expertise includes evaluation planning, implementation, and reporting, working with both state and local partners to ensure data collection meets federal requirements and supports the state’s ability to measure progress toward key performance indicators. Through these efforts, she has developed a strong understanding of and ability to foster collaboration on evaluations among community organizations, service providers, and behavioral health staff. Ms. Simhai has also worked extensively with national, state, and local epidemiology and surveillance data related to naloxone administration, opioid overdoses, and substance use disorder service utilization to monitor overdose-related trends and identify insights to improve prevention strategy implementation. She holds a Master of Public Health Degree in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Community Health from the University of Maryland, and is a past board member of the Colorado Public Health Association.
Eden Griffin, PhD (she/her)
Director
Dr. Eden Griffin is a Director at OMNI Institute with a primary focus on Behavioral Health. Dr. Griffin oversees numerous large-scale evaluations of statewide substance use prevention projects, including the State of Alabama and the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant (SUPTRS-BG) prevention efforts, both funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She also oversees the evaluation of Alabama's multi-year SAMHSA-funded Strategic Prevention Framework for Prescriptions Drugs grant (SPF-Rx) and Virginia's State Opioid Response (SOR) grant prevention efforts aimed at reducing prescription drug misuse and its consequences. In addition to oversight of state-level prevention evaluation, Dr. Griffin has also guided numerous government entities through needs assessment and comprehensive evaluation planning processes to align prevention priorities with demonstrated need and evidence-based best practices. She is currently overseeing multiple projects focused on the utilization of opioid settlement funds. Dr. Griffin earned her doctorate in Human Development and Family Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin and has extensive experience developing and executing mixed-method research projects.
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