Evidence or Instinct? An International Exploration of the Impact Assessment Practices of Intervention Providers Supporting Leaving Extremism

The number of deradicalisation and disengagement programmes has increased significantly in recent years. Such initiatives have become part of the standard counterterrorism and conflict resolution repertoire. There are various ways to measure a programme participant’s progress or evaluate an intervention’s impact. Nevertheless, knowledge is lacking on which methods used in programmes work and which do not. Additionally, despite encouragement, intervention providers seldom measure participant development or evaluate programme impact.

This thesis focuses on the discussed knowledge gap by conducting semi-structured interviews with 12 practitioners to gain an overview of their practices and opinions on impact assessment. This thesis seeks answers to three questions: how do tertiary prevention intervention providers measure the progress or regression of participants; how do tertiary prevention intervention providers measure the impact of programmes; and what is the reasoning for not practising impact assessment.

The results show that 50% of the interviewed practitioners measure participant progress with standardised tools or set criteria. To measure participant progress, practitioners employ screening, needs assessment, indicators of change, and standardised tools. Programme development is tracked through monitoring or evaluation conducted by an outside evaluator or funder. Impact assessment is not practised for several reasons, including lack of trust in standardised tools and methods, and tendency to work based on professional intuition.

This thesis argues that instead of evaluating interventions' “success”, more attention should be placed on assessing participant progress and creating a standardised progress measuring tool. Moreover, due to tertiary prevention processes being non-linear, relapse should be considered an inevitable part of
programmes. As its contribution to research, the findings of this thesis can be put into use to create interdisciplinary standardised progress measuring tools and train current and future intervention providers. Also, design funding principles for tertiary prevention programme interventions and an environment that supports impact measuring.