Prevention Coalition Functioning in Chile: Adaptation and Use of the Communities That Care Coalition Board Interview

Introduction

Communities That Care (CTC) is an evidence-based, community-change process for lowering youth violence, substance use, and delinquency through the implementation of tested and effective prevention programs that align with local need. Because of the dire need for community-based systems to implement evidence-based prevention strategies in Latin America, the CTC system is currently being adapted for use in Chile. Comunidades que se Cuidan (CQC) is an adaptation of CTC that focuses on the development of a community prevention coalition as a vehicle of prevention system change in communities. In CTC, the process of coalition knowledge acquisition and functioning capacity is typically assessed using an established Community Board Interview (CBI), which was developed as part of a national evaluation of CTC in the United States (i.e., the Community Youth Development Study).

Methods

The focus of this research was to translate the CBI into Spanish, augment it with additional relevant measures, and adapt it to be culturally appropriate for the needs of three community coalitions that are currently implementing CQC in Chile as part of a pilot implementation project. The instrument was assessed by content area experts and reviewed for cultural appropriateness by a local team of Chilean professionals working on the CQC implementation. The finalized survey is currently being administered to approximately 50 community coalition board members in three communities around Santiago, Chile. The data will be tabulated and psychometrically analyzed following the procedures established by the CYDS assessment of the CBI in the United States (i.e., scaling, internal consistency, inter-scale correlations, and descriptive analyses).

Results

Results of this study are currently pending the completion of data collection activities. Anticipated results include the identification of several aspects of community prevention board formation and functioning, and the adaptation of the CTC system for use in Chile. Constructs measured by the CBI include: board directedness, efficiency, efficacy, cohesiveness, leadership, communication, community involvement, organizational structure, member satisfaction, barriers to system change, sustainability, and implementation of evidence based prevention programs and strategies. CBI data from the CYDS will be compared to the Chilean CBI data to facilitate interpretation of standards of coalition board formation and functioning.

Conclusion

This project elucidates knowledge and internal processes of community prevention coalitions in the three Chilean communities that are implementing the CQC prevention system. Measuring coalition functioning and capacity in communities is important in order to understand if and how coalition processes relate to system outputs (i.e., implementation of evidence-based interventions) and outcomes (i.e., youth drug use behaviors). As a coalition-based approach to implementing prevention programs and strategies has been shown to be efficacious and sustainable, knowledge gained from this study will be useful in the expansion of community-based systems in Latin America.