Systems-Level Approaches to School-Based Prevention Programming

This roundtable discussion will bring together individuals representing various organizations, viewpoints, and expertise across critical socioecological levels of school-based prevention and student health and well-being outcomes (e.g., substance use and abuse, mental health, physical activity, and concussions). A systems-level school-based prevention approach operates with the understanding that student health and well-being are determined by influences at multiple levels (e.g., public policy, community, institutional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal factors) (McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler & Glanz, 1988). Students are embedded within school communities where multiple levels of influence exist; levels that are both interactive and reinforcing. Creating sustainable school-based prevention initiatives, therefore, is most effective when all of these levels are targeted simultaneously. Intrapersonal level school-based interventions typically aim to change the knowledge, beliefs, and skills of students. Interpersonal-level interventions are designed to create change in social relationships by often targeting dyadic or small group student interactions. School and school community-level interventions are designed to create change in school environments by targeting partnerships between administrators, teachers, parent organizations and other mediating structures within the school and promoting a high degree of school community ownership and engagement. Implementing school policies with student health behavior implications or facilitating “school citizen” advocacy are frequent targets of interventions at the policy level. In this roundtable session the panelists will discuss examples of and experiences with systems-level prevention initiatives including creative solutions, common best practice components, implementation challenges and successes, evidence of impact, critical evaluation considerations, and research funding mechanisms. The audience will be actively engaged in dialogue to create an interactive learning environment. Maximizing the public health impact of school-based prevention programming and sustaining school-based prevention initiatives over time are challenges that continually face the prevention community. Prevention science research has clearly indicated that comprehensive systems-level approaches are necessary to optimize the health and well-being of individuals; in this case students.