Session: Abstract of Distinction: Using Communities That Care in Different Contexts to to Optimize Prevention Science and the Use of Evidence-Based Programs (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

Communities That Care (CTC) is a community-based prevention system proven to reduce youth health and behavior problems community-wide (Hawkins et al., 2009). Based on the premise that communities are unique, CTC helps local coalitions develop community-specific prevention plans based on their particular levels of behavioral health problems and risk and protective factors. CTC’s 5-phase process provides communities with step-by-step guides and tools for building a high functioning community prevention coalition, assessing and prioritizing local prevention needs, and selecting and implementing evidence-based programs that align with those needs. The goal of CTC is to improve youth wellbeing and achieve collective impact. This symposium discusses CTC from both the science and practice perspectives and explores its viability as a generalizable planning system for a variety of outcomes and contexts. The session examines implementation outcomes in a variety of contexts that represent innovations to the original model. The first paper examines implementation outcomes from two Oregon communities using CTC to prevent child abuse and neglect. It extends the use of CTC to a new context—the child welfare system—and to new outcomes and age groups. The second paper presents process variables from two international applications of CTC in Chile and Germany. It focuses on the early stages of CTC’s coalition building process, and shows how different cultures and countries can vary aspects of their local implementation, yet use a common mechanism to foster prevention. Finally, the third paper examines how CTC can be integrated into a more comprehensive approach with Evidence2Success, a community change initiative supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The paper explores how the rural/urban characteristics of communities, and the differing “institutional homes” that lead prevention efforts, impact implementation.

The three presentations provide real world examples of ways in which prevention coalitions can interact with and integrate into different systems, including public and private organizations. It provides support to the notion that the CTC framework which offers flexibility and adapts to the unique needs of individual communities—is a promising vehicle for optimizing prevention because it can increase the uptake of evidence-based programs.