Qualitative Assessment of Key Implementation Factors in a Faith-Based Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Background.

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) have a scant history in the literature of implementing intimate partner violence (IPV) initiatives, though many members of faith communities consider it an important issue. Furthermore, the limited studies on this topic have not explored organizational factors that are important in the implementation of such efforts.

Purpose.

To investigate factors that influence the implementation of IPV prevention and response by one Catholic organization at both diocesan and parish levels.

Methods.

We conducted sixteen semi-structured interviews with members of Archdiocese of Chicago Domestic Violence Outreach (ACDVO) leadership. Using deductive content analysis, we drew on all 14 constructs and sub-constructs from the inner setting domain of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) for coding transcripts and characterizing factors influencing implementation success.

Results.

Seven CFIR constructs were useful in identifying factors that influenced implementation success of ACDVO. At the diocesan level, the organization’s leadership structure, their driven culture, and in-kind available resources propelled their work. At the level of parish ministries, successful implementation was facilitated by networking and communication among parishes. At the diocesan-level, access to knowledge and information through ACDVO’s Parish Support Committee, compatibility with parish values, leadership engagement, and available resources from parishes supported implementation.

Conclusions.

We identified modifiable and reproducible inner setting factors that influence implementation of a Catholic IPV initiative at the diocesan-level and support parish ministries in their local activities. Future work should validate these findings in other dioceses and examine non-Catholic FBO settings.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) includes a range of abuses against a current or former partner that can be physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological (Niolon et al., 2017). IPV is prevalent with the most recent data from the U.S. National Survey on Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence showing that over one in three women experience physical or sexual IPV and/or stalking in their lifetime (Smith et al., 2018). Studies of IPV survivors have found that some use religious coping strategies or draw on their faith and spirituality in handling their experiences (Bhandari, 2018; Chaudhry & Cattaneo, 2023; Simonič, 2021). However, studies of religious leaders find expressed need for more training and assistance in how to support victims and survivors (Houston-Kolnik et al., 2019; Shaw et al., 2022; Sisselman-Borgia & Bonanno, 2017; Williams & Jenkins, 2019). Data from both leaders and survivors in turn exhibit that some faith leaders respond to disclosures of abuse with recommendations that are contrary to best practices for promoting safety (Burse et al., 2022; Chaudhry & Cattaneo, 2023; Choi, 2015; Gezinski et al., 2023; Williams & Jenkins, 2019).

A nationwide survey over three waves (n = 3,334) found that among Christian congregations, 7.5% offered congregation-based programs that support survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence in 1998, but only 3.9% and 3.8% did in 2006–2007 and 2012, respectively (Houston-Kolnik & Todd, 2016) Consistent with infrequent endorsement of having such a ministry, sparse examples exist in the literature describing or analyzing faith-based organizations (FBOs) that are active in responding to IPV. These primarily describe efforts to educate and train religious leaders about the issue (Drumm et al., 2018; Hancock et al., 2014; Jones & Fowler, 2006), though recent work in Australia piloted efforts to train church-based trainers in educating about IPV and delivering bystander training (Pearce et al., 2022). There is nevertheless limited data on initiatives that go beyond focusing on clergy knowledge, and even less exploration of factors that are associated with an FBO’s ability to implement IPV prevention or response.

We sought to address this gap by studying the work of the Archdiocese of Chicago Domestic Violence Outreach Ministry (ACDVO), a Catholic initiative. We identified ACDVO as an outlier among U.S. dioceses in their work to respond and address IPV with support from the Catholics for Family Peace Education and Research Initiative, a national organization that is the most familiar with the landscape of IPV work across the U.S. Catholic Church (S. O’Brien, PhD, phone call, December 19, 2017). ACDVO is an official entity of the Archdiocese of Chicago (AOC), comprising Cook and Lake Counties in Illinois. A diocese is an administrative unit whose leader, a bishop, reports directly to the Pope, the head of the global Catholic Church. The United States is divided up into 197 dioceses, of which AOC has one of the smallest geographic footprints and densest populations. Within each diocese are many parishes—a community of Catholics based typically in a single church—led by a pastor, and usually including other priests, administrative staff, and lay (non-ordained) leaders and groups. At the end of the study in early 2020, the AOC had 316 parishes.

Briefly, ACDVO was created following a local priest’s commitment to talk about IPV during mass outside of his parish beginning in 2008. He became a champion for the issue and in collaboration with other interested leaders, formally established the ministry in 2011. Since then, ACDVO has grown its mission and activities to address “awareness, services, and prevention” and has worked to reach out to increasingly more parishes throughout the diocese. The analysis presented here is part of a parent case study of the ministry, which we undertook to assess the organization and its work in depth. More information about the evidence-informed approaches of the ministry are reported elsewhere (Debinski et al, 2023) including their efforts facilitating in-parish counseling services through Catholic Charities to reach areas and communities—including undocumented immigrants—with limited access to existing resources.

Our objective for this study was to investigate the factors associated with implementation of ACDVO activities at both the central diocesan level and among parishes.

METHOD

Data Collection

We began recruitment via email in late summer 2018, targeting members of ACDVO’s diocesan-level steering committee. Other possible contacts were subsequently recommended by interviewees, leading to a total of 19 individuals contacted. Across September 2018, October 2019, and January 2020, the lead author (B.D.) conducted 16 in-depth interviews with key informants; 2 were second interviews to follow up on developing initiatives, 13 conducted in person (3 by phone or Zoom), and all participants consented orally and gave permission for audio-recording. Interviews were semi-structured. Among other topics, key informants discussed the key components of their ministry and their implementation, the factors that have helped or hindered the ministry’s work, and what they perceived would be needed to ensure program sustainability. This study was determined not to be human subjects research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Institutional Review Board.

Data Analysis

The lead author began analysis by writing notes and reflections on completed interviews and further probing on observations in subsequent interviews. We then used NVivo qualitative data analysis software (QSR International Pty Ltd. Version 12, 2018) to review and organize data from interview transcripts and conduct directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

To explore factors associated with implementation of ACDVO’s activities, we used all constructs from the “inner setting” domain of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) (Damschroder et al., 2009) as a priori codes. The “inner setting” is one of five CFIR domains, also including intervention characteristics, outer setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation. The CFIR is a determinants framework, and we used a “menu of constructs” approach (Brehaut & Eva, 2012) in this study, drawing on those domains and constructs most related to our objective. We focused our attention on and deductively applied the 14 inner setting constructs and sub-constructs to assess characteristics of ACDVO itself.

The coding applications for this specific context evolved iteratively as B.D. coded an initial subset of transcripts, reviewed each coded unit, and recoded or redefined the definition as needed. She also shared examples of coded units with co-authors to discuss the appropriateness of how constructs were applied. Table 1 includes all constructs that we found to be relevant for this study, along with their local definitions. Next, we used integrative memos to synthesize the notes made on all coded segments (Emerson et al., 1995), summarizing respondent observations and descriptive comments, and generating explanations about how dioceses and parishes have implemented ministry components and how this influences variation in implementation outcomes (Yin, 2018).

TABLE 1.

Interviewee Quotes Illustrating Key Findings

Construct	Definition as applied	Example quote
Factors impactful at the diocesan level
Structural characteristics	Age and size of the diocesan-level ministry and of parish ministries; leadership roles that are included and how members are arranged relative to one another	We just set this structure up probably over the last two years and believe me it’s much better than the previous two. We’ve got identified chairpersons, with identified roles and identified responsibilities. So in that case, excellent, I think. I think we could probably do a better job of maybe clearly defining how long somebody should be in a position and maybe making a decision if you have the right person in it because . . . basically we volunteer. You’re the chairperson or the volunteer . . . forever . . .
Culture	Norms and values among the diocesan-level leadership, within parish ministries, and throughout ACDVO	[A] lot of the executive team, it’s like they look at their work like this is their fulltime job. This is not like a volunteer thing that they do when they have time . . . It’s almost like it’s contagious; like the people that are working within it want you to do the absolute best you can do, because they truly believe in what they’re doing.
Available resources (Readiness for implementation)	Types and levels of dedicated resources for ACDVO work at the diocesan level (including but not limited to time, money, physical space, training, and education)	You know we don’t get financial support [from the archdiocese], although we do get support of the website, our site is hosted on the archdiocese’s site, so we do get some support from them. For example we do get support, we use Catholic Charities for meeting space so there are some things that we don’t need to pay for you know at this moment.
Factors impactful at the parish level
Networks and communications	Methods of communication between the diocesan-level ministry and parish ministries, and communication among parish ministries; how parishes and parish ministries are networked	[The ministry network began with] a phone call. The pastor at [parish name] just called me on my cell phone because he heard that we were starting. . .this DV ministry, and he said he’d like to be part of it. And he came himself with one or two of his parishioner ladies. And [second parish name] had already had a fledging domestic violence ministry going, but they found it was much more helpful to form an alliance with another parish in order to be able to get speakers to come in and have prayer vigils.
Compatibility (Implementation climate)	Extent of fit between the perceived values of domestic violence outreach and those of parish communities, as well as fit with how parishes are structured and operate	You work with what you’re given. Again, it’s by trust, building relationships. We have a new pastor now, but again, the culture of the parish has to be taken into account. He can’t wave a magic wand and change the culture of the parish. And we . . . he has to . . . because he’s new, he moves slowly to navigate all of this. So little by little, we’re able to get hotline numbers, for example, to put on the bulletin board.
Leadership engagement (Readiness for implementation)	Extent and types of commitment and involvement by AOC higher-level leadership (ordained and lay), diocesan-level ministry leadership, overall parish leadership (ordained and lay), and parish ministry leadership	And the interest of the priest has a lot to do with the ministry, too, believe it or not. Even if he’s not invited, but if he kind of shows up every so often and people see that he has the interest to help the parishioners or the community, they’re going to come, and also the ministry is going to stay strong.
Available resources (Readiness for implementation)	Types and levels of dedicated resources for ACDVO work at the parish level (including but not limited to time, money, physical space, training, and education)	So we’ve had monies to put out—from when we did the [film screening], there were some costs and we had money for that . . . And now this year we have seed money for paying the park district to rent the park for the evening and then some of our other expenses. We’ve been blessed. The other parishes have had to fight to get their monies.
Access to knowledge and information (Readiness for implementation)	Ease of access to information and knowledge about what domestic violence outreach activities are recommended, are and how to implement them; applied both for diocesan-level leadership and for parish ministries	. . . [W]hen you hand a new volunteer . . . this packet full of all these papers—all they want to do is close it and put it in their inbox. So I say the simpler, the better. Yes, give them information about what other parishes do. Yes, turn them toward the website. And yes, give our contact information. And, “Don’t worry, we’re here to walk you through,” . . . I think too much information is overwhelming.

Source. Construct definitions were adapted from Damschroder et al. (2009).

Note. ACDVO = Archdiocese of Chicago Domestic Violence Outreach Ministry; AOC = Archdiocese of Chicago; DV = domestic violence.

To validate explanations that we developed from the analysis, we conducted member checking with ACDVO’s diocesan-level leadership, including many study participants, both seeking to recognize the participation, contribution, and experiences of the community partner as well as to begin sharing findings. We presented initial results in a group setting, and the leadership offered their comments, highlighting some findings and building on other explanations. In turn, transcripts were revisited for any newer feedback or framing that emerged in the group’s feedback, and study interpretations were expanded as reflected in the data.

RESULTS

Our analysis identified key implementation factors through seven constructs and sub-constructs from the CFIR: culture, structural characteristics, networks and communications, all three sub-constructs of readiness for implementation (available resources, leadership engagement, and access to knowledge and information), and one sub-construct of implementation climate (compatibility). The results are organized by the level (diocesan or parish ministry) of implementation. Figure 1 depicts observed interrelationships between key factors and ACDVO activities. Sub-headings below have superscript annotations connecting the text to Figure 1. Table 1 includes interviewee quotations illustrating each construct.

FIGURE 1. Conceptual Model of Factors Influencing ACDVO Diocesan and Parish Implementation.

Note. Major implemented activities are in bold boxes; CFIR constructs or sub-constructs (Damschroder et al., 2009) are in italics; superscript numbers link to relevant discussion in body of text. ACDVO = Archdiocese of Chicago Domestic Violence Outreach Ministry; CFIR = Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research; COO = Chief Operating Officer.

Supporting Implementation at the Diocesan Level

Based on our interviews, the factors supporting the diocesan level’s portfolio of activities were ACDVO’s structural characteristics, culture, and available resources.

Structural Characteristics¹:

As of early 2020, the executive committee comprised 12 members, including the Director, a Chief Operating Officer also serving as the Education sub-committee lead, an administrator, an accountant, two representatives from Catholic Charities, two sub-committee chairs for Communications and Parish Support, and three members at-large. ACDVO had a dedicated social media coordinator and a database manager. Four of these roles were part-time contractor positions, and the remaining leaders were either operating in the capacity of their external employment or exclusively volunteering, contributing to what one informant described as an “all-volunteer army.”

We observed that the executive committee evolved over time to better meet the organization’s needs, such as through clearly defining roles to achieve the pieces of its mission, and had not experienced much turnover in its established roles. About half of its leaders were involved in the executive committee from its earliest iterations. Others were involved with the ministry at their parish before taking on an additional role with the expanding diocesan-level ministry.

Preaching about domestic violence at parishes was almost exclusively the responsibility of the director, the only clergyman on the executive committee. ACDVO was working to identify other priests and deacons who could also visit parishes and talk about IPV, though had yet to identify anyone who could do so to the same extent as the current director. Several informants perceived, however, that it was essential for the director position to be filled by a priest to ensure sustainability of the organization, as a priest could uniquely address IPV during church services and interface with parish pastors.

Culture²:

The next factor that supported implementation success was ACDVO culture. Among the diocesan-level leadership, we observed a strong commitment to promoting discussion about IPV by the Catholic Church, providing support to victims and survivors, and preventing violence through teaching about healthy relationships.

Informants also reflected on the clarity of focus on the organization’s mission, and that key leaders’—in their words—“relentless tenacity” and ability to “push through the noise” were critical for overcoming discouragement or frustration about progress.

Available Resources³:

As an element of readiness for implementation, available resources include but are not limited to time, money, and space. ACDVO leadership gathered funds through private donations, grant applications, and their annual gala, but many of the resources to support implementation were provided in-kind. For example, Catholic Charities offered meeting space, and the diocese dedicated a section of its website for ACDVO.

Although space and funding were critical infrastructure for ACDVO, we observed that volunteered time was a major resource driving the ministry since its inception. Almost everyone was a volunteer, and—as noted above—the commitment by the executive committee members to address IPV and fulfill ACDVO’s mission, led some leaders to volunteer nearly full-time, generating substantial monetary cost savings. Unfortunately, the reliance on volunteers was also a threat to sustainability, and leadership was exploring potential future needs and configurations, including the likelihood of needing to pay leaders in key roles.

Supporting Implementation at the Parish Level

This next section presents factors we found to be associated with implementation of various parish ministry activities: their networks and communications, compatibility (sub-construct of implementation climate) and readiness for implementation (including all three sub-constructs of available resources, leadership engagement, and access to information and knowledge).

Networks and Communications⁴:

As part of the process of establishing parish ministries, diocesan-level leaders were instrumental in facilitating early communications between interested parishioners and parish leaders. The larger ACDVO network was made up of many parish ministries that may be based in a single parish or composed of small networks of several parishes in geographic proximity. Small parish networks enabled increased capacity to pursue priority activities, and as the diocese underwent a larger restructuring process that included combining or grouping parishes, more parish domestic violence ministries were combining as well. In addition, the Parish Support Committee was working to connect parish ministries more formally to create and strengthen relationships and to foster collaboration. As a result, in 2017 the Southside Parishes Network was established to bring together representatives from parish ministries in Chicago’s Southside and southern suburbs.

Communication from the diocesan level to parish ministries was occurring through several channels, including an email listserv, social media, parish mentors, and larger events such as biannual all-parish network meetings. Parishes also harnessed these various channels to connect and communicate with one another. This ranged from promoting parish ministry events and sharing activities to using connections or time with the larger group to troubleshoot challenges. Full network events were also an opportunity to connect with other parish groups informally.

Compatibility⁵:

We found that parish norms and values could particularly influence the ability of parish ministries to implement DV activities. Notably, parishes that identified themselves as active participants in addressing social issues, or that had a greater variety of existing ministries, were fertile ground for implementing and sustaining a DV ministry. In contrast, expanding DV outreach was hindered by some parish cultures where people were not receptive to discussions of DV and—as in one example—by pastors who perceived that addressing DV publicly in the parish could have consequences on donations.

Leadership Engagement⁶:

Once a ministry was established, we heard from informants that engagement by the pastor—or in some cases a deacon—varied widely, as did the support of parish staff. One informant commented that it was unusual to see the pastor at even only the second ministry meeting. Lack of priest participation in the ministry did not appear to deter all ministry members, but some engagement was seen to be valuable to convey that DV is an issue the parish prioritizes. An alternative perspective offered by one interviewee was that some pastors might keep their distance to give their parishioners privacy and confidentiality if victims do show up, and that it might not necessarily reflect a lack of support.

In some parishes, the level of leadership engagement translated into a lack of willingness by the pastor and parish staff to receive available training, purportedly based on the incorrect belief that they already knew how to respond to requests for help. In addition, events that had depended upon participation of a pastor or deacon, such as prayer vigils, were at risk of being discontinued if that individual was unable to maintain involvement. Pastoral changes could also usher in changes of support, though this could move in either direction. Finally, although pastors were critical, the ministries’ successes also depended on the lay leader(s) of their groups and the extent to which they were interacting with the diocesan level and working to foster the support of parish leaders and staff.

Available Resources⁷:

The level of parish leadership support for its DV ministry was also related to the available resources for use. To minimize possible barriers, parish ministries were initially directed by diocesan leaders to low-cost options for activities. Many parish ministries were able to benefit from existing parish resources, such as by getting content included in the regular weekly bulletins or on the website, getting prayers for people experiencing DV added among prayers said during mass, or using parish spaces. Some parish ministries did receive financial resources, but this was not seen as the norm.

Time was also found to shape the work of parish ministries, which were predominantly comprised of volunteer laypersons. Time commitment varied widely between ministry members, and turnover among volunteers was always a threat. Perceptions of the necessary time commitment were also a barrier to launching a new ministry, with parish leaders and laypersons sometimes expressing concerns about the implications of getting involved.

Access to Knowledge and Information⁸:

One resource that ACDVO’s diocesan level made available to parishes was education about DV and area resources for ministry members and parish staff, and training in how to raise awareness, and how to respond to requests for help, though the perceived effectiveness of trainings in helping ministries translate knowledge into action did vary. These training opportunities also exemplify the final sub-construct of access to knowledge and information, which refers to the “ease of access to information about an intervention and how to incorporate it” (Damschroder et al., 2009).

Another available resource that similarly promoted access to knowledge and information was ACDVO’s Resource Guide, which the diocesan-level leadership developed and was continually updating, and which was made available both through the website and provided in hard copy to new parish ministries. The Guide comprised various documents that could walk a parish ministry through decision-making and planning, while offering branded content that could be used directly in parish materials, and example homilies and prayers. It also included links to websites for hotlines or area services; resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports, and articles; and videos of survivors telling their stories as well as the cardinal’s sermon at the annual mass.

Finally, perhaps the most valuable factor affecting implementation was the parish mentoring model offered through the Parish Support Committee. The model emerged from asking parishes about what they needed to help them be successful. Its approach evolved over time, but at its core, a mentor was assigned to provide an orientation to the Resource Guide and offer more easily digestible information about which materials are accessible in the process of getting a ministry started. Mentors were also available to help with the logistics of establishing a ministry structure, planning meetings, and beginning to organize early learning and outreach activities, and continued to remain as a connection for as long as the ministry needed them.

DISCUSSION

In this study, we interviewed key informants from the Archdiocese of Chicago Domestic Violence Outreach Ministry to assess the implementation of their key activities and the factors associated with implementation both at the diocesan and parish levels. We drew on constructs from the inner setting domain from the CFIR to organize our analysis and found seven factors related to implementation—three at the diocesan level and five at the parish level—with available resources as a common factor between the two levels.

We found that culture is a prominent feature of why ACDVO has been successful, driven by passion and commitment to the issue of IPV and enabling ministry members to be persistent, especially in working to reverse the Church’s relative inaction on the topic. Similar findings of the importance of culture were reported in two other studies within FBOs that also applied CFIR to assess implementation of health promotion interventions, among Christian, Muslim, and Sikh FBOs serving Asian-American subgroups (Gore et al., 2020), and among Latino audiences also in Catholic parishes (Allen et al., 2015). In a similar vein, compatibility with active parish outreach initiatives was an important factor in enabling implementation of ACDVO activities, echoing experiences of other programs in churches that found greater implementation and maintenance when the intervention was seen to align with other church programs and priorities (Wilcox et al., 2022; Zimmermann et al., 2023).

ACDVO leadership invested significant time into the organization’s mission, contributing to a major element of ACDVO’s available resources; however, the amount of volunteer time available was recognized to be unsustainable and unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. Implementation of other FBO initiatives has predictably been affected by the level of available resources (Gore et al., 2020; Haughton et al., 2020), and it has been a similar experience among parish ministries within ACDVO. Leadership engagement is then another component of readiness and also contributed to the success of parish ministries as others have demonstrated (Wilcox et al., 2022; Zimmermann et al., 2023).

In addition, structural characteristics—here an executive committee with roles defined for leading key activities—are key factors that supported the success of ACDVO implementation. Such a structure could be emulated in other settings to help provide access to knowledge and information to parish ministries, as well as connect a diocesan-level ministry with parish ministries, and parish ministries with one other through networks and communications. Among its formal leadership roles and subcommittees, the diocesan level of ACDVO has a Parish Support chair and committee dedicated to providing technical assistance and guidance for new parish ministries. This is consistent with recommendations by the Center for Congregations—which supports FBOs in their operations more broadly—to engage external resources or congregational support from a peer that has also encountered and navigated the same issue or challenge (Shapiro, 2015).

The parish mentors from the Parish Support Committee also drew on and introduced a comprehensive resource guide to support parishes in their domestic violence outreach, akin to prior cancer prevention work in Catholic parishes (Leyva et al., 2017). The guide contains branded materials and example text for parish ministry use that help promote consistency in messaging while facilitating program implementation, which also follows best practices in organizational change (Kotter, 2007). The committee and its mentors are a conduit for information between the two levels of the ministry, and also bring together parishes to collaborate in regional networks. Through a centralized entity, the diocesanlevel ministry similarly networks all active parishes across the AOC under its umbrella of ACDVO, further enabling peer learning and support. Zimmermann et al. (2023) applied CFIR to cardiovascular health programming in rural Illinois churches, noting the benefit of connectivity across congregations particularly when church leadership may turnover.

Strengths and Limitations

This study has strengths as well as a few limitations. Among its strengths is that the Catholic Church is functionally similar across its many dioceses, suggesting that the findings of our exploration into what has enabled ACDVO to be an outlier in addressing IPV would be more readily transferable to other dioceses and parishes. At the same time, our in-depth focus on one diocese that is an outlier limited our ability to compare between dioceses that are engaging with IPV at all and to identify whether there may be critical aspects of the AOC that cannot be replicated. Although Catholic dioceses and parishes are alike in many ways, there may also be inner setting variations that have not been encountered in Chicago. Future studies could compare implementation between a wider array of dioceses and parishes to identify nuances to why some parishes are able to become active members and others are not. An additional limitation is that our key informants did not include any individuals who were former leaders in the diocesan-level ministry or in a parish ministry that dropped off, thus it is possible they would have perspectives on why implementation does or does not succeed that current leaders have not encountered.

Another potential limitation of the study is that it describes the work of ACDVO prior to widespread closures in the United States due to COVID-19. Follow-up information from the Director revealed that activities or resources not already online did largely pause or were scaled back into 2021. Some committees and ministries switched to online meetings while others suspended work for several months, seeing reduced attendance even when services resumed. Simultaneously, the pandemic encouraged ACDVO to build better technical capacity and connectivity and move more meetings and trainings to online platforms. As local restrictions on gatherings were lifted, in-person ACDVO activities resumed (C. Dahm, personal communication, September 30, 2022). Better technological infrastructure has the potential to reach a wider audience going forward and involve individuals who have existing challenges to in-person participation, such as limited transportation or mobility. Of concern, however, is that more reliance on online activities can disproportionately impact and pose new barriers to people who do not have reliable internet.

Implications for Practice and Research

Our study contributes to a growing literature demonstrating the utility of CFIR to assess implementation in faith-based settings. Moreover, to our knowledge, our conceptual model (Figure 1) is unique—particularly among work in FBOs—in positing how CFIR constructs relate to and affect one another within and across two organizational levels. Future research should strive to quantify these constructs and measure how key features and pathways impact implementation activities and the people they reach, including whether IPV prevention and response through FBOs benefits under-served populations and how. Future work should also seek to compare this model to the experiences of other settings, especially to assess how they may contrast if an academic and/or governmental institution works in partnership with an entity such as a denominational conference (e.g., Wilcox et al., 2022), or connects to FBOs more independently (e.g., Zimmermann et al., 2023).

Our work also suggests that Catholic institutions and FBOs more broadly encompass existing cultures—and/or people with relevant values—that are strongly committed to the health and safety of those they serve. It is thus encouraging there may be other faith-based settings across the United States that are predisposed to welcome pursuing IPV prevention and response. Similar efforts in other places could be facilitated by available resources such as church spaces or existing dissemination channels. Moreover, existing materials from ACDVO could be accessed, tailored (Haughton et al., 2020), and used elsewhere, alongside replication of a mentoring structure to help support programs in making decisions and implementing IPV prevention and response.

ACDVO has evolved and expanded over time to accommodate a growing portfolio of activities and to better support an increasing number of participating parishes. For those interested in transferring similar efforts in other areas, insights from the implementation of these activities at both the diocesan and parish levels illustrate which factors are modifiable and reproducible. Future work should explore the implementation of similar efforts in other dioceses to validate these findings, as well as test them in non-Catholic FBO settings.