Using Communities That Care to Set Priorities and Select Community-Level Prevention Strategies in High-Risk Denver Communities

Introduction: This presentation describes how the Youth Violence Prevention Center - Denver (YVPC-D), a research-practice-policy partnership supported by the Centers for Disease Control National Youth Violence Prevention Centers of Excellence, is adapting and implementing the Communities That Care (CTC) system in two high-risk, urban communities to prevent violence and other problem behaviors. The modified CTC system focuses on the selection and implementation of community-level prevention strategies and policies that best address community needs, values, and resources. CTC implementation is expected to positively impact the community’s readiness and capacity to build a prevention infrastructure that uses research evidence to inform the selection and implementation of community- and policy-level prevention strategies.

Methods: Community household survey data from 2016 was used by the community boards to identify and select community priorities and community-level prevention strategies matched to need. Data on readiness and coalition functioning was also collected to inform community boards about strengths and areas of improvement.

Results: Communities successfully selected priority risk and protective factors and community level prevention strategies matched to their identified needs. Coalition readiness and healthy functioning supported this process.

Conclusions: This approach increased the community’s capacity to use data to set collective priorities and select community-level prevention strategies that are useful and valuable for their community. Feedback loops provided by the research team provided important information about barriers and potential areas of improvement to help overcome roadblocks.