Building Partnerships for Implementation and Dissemination of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices: Lessons Learned from CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention Initiatives

This roundtable will describe some key mechanisms by which the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brings evidence-based programs and practices (EBP) into communities through the use of partnerships that are responsive to different capacities. Depending upon the needs of the field, DVP works with both research and programmatic partners to widely disseminate effective programs and to generate evidence where evidence is lacking. In this roundtable we will discuss the three largest violence prevention initiatives in DVP, the Youth Violence Prevention Centers (YVPCs), Striving to Prevent Youth Violence Everywhere (STRYVE), and Dating Matters. These three projects represent various stages of readiness and development for delivering EBPs, and also represent different public health partnerships (e.g., R1 universities, public health departments, and primary education). During this roundtable, participants will learn more about each of these three initiatives, including the lessons we have learned from this work and how future initiatives can build off of what we have learned.

The first presentation in this roundtable, “CDC’s Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention: At the Forefront of An Evolving Evidence Base,” provides an overview of the YVPC program goals, which include implementing and evaluating a constellation of evidence-based programs in communities to prevent violence, homicide, and assault. YVPCs partner with practitioners at public health departments, schools, and local organizations to implement the comprehensive approach aimed at preventing violence throughout the community.

The second presentation, “Striving to Prevent Youth Violence Everywhere: Bringing the Best Available Evidence to Practice,” describes DVP’s STRYVE initiative, which was developed in order to provide the tools necessary to implement and sustain community-wide youth violence prevention strategies based on the best-available evidence. STRYVE’s goals are to increase public health leadership to prevent youth violence; promote the widespread adoption of youth violence prevention strategies based on the best available evidence; and and reduce the rates of youth violence on a national scale.. The presentation will focus on describing the work being conducted in the four STRYVE sites and also the development of “STRYVE Online,” which is a free web-based tool to provide youth, families, and communities with accurate and accessible information about how they can enact violence prevention strategies.

The third presentation in the series, “CDC’s “Dating Matters: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Dating Relationships,” describes Dating Matters, which attempts to expand the existing evidence base for the prevention of teen dating violence in high-risk, urban communities through partnerships with public health departments, schools, and communities. The presentation will discuss strengths and challenges relevant to this particular CDC strategy for supporting teen dating violence prevention within urban communities.