Book excerpt: Whether you are responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating peer and prevention programs or simply an outside consultant or evaluator, this book will be an essential guide for your work. This user-friendly training manual provides a blueprint of a step-by-step approach to setting-up an evaluation program that guides you through the planning, development, implementation, data collection, and organization stages, and then communicating the results to others. The authors establish a rationale for program evaluation, explaining how it differs from research, and discuss ways to align the vision, mission, and goals of a program. They then describe several approaches to evaluation and methods for successfully collecting and analyzing data. Methods for reporting the results are also considered and numerous forms and charts are provided to assist with and illustrate the organization, evaluation, and reporting of data. An accompanying CD contains guidelines, handouts, and forms that can be reproduced for your own use in evaluation.