Session: Process of Cultural Adaptations of a Peer Victimization Prevention Program in Indigenous Canadian, Quebec, and Brazilian Communities (Society for Prevention Research 27th Annual Meeting)

Increases in the availability of well-developed and evaluated - evidence-based - prevention programs have raised questions about how well programs created in one context with one group of users will work in other contexts with individuals were not involved in the original program development. Although once thought to challenge implementation fidelity, meta-analysis of cultural adaptations of evidence-based programs demonstrates their considerable promise in improving program effectiveness in new contexts (Hall et al. 2016). Components of adaptation that advance or diminish program fidelity have also begun to be identified. These include not only program modifications, but also adjustments to the capacity of community to implement the program (Zayes et al. 2012; Wong et al 2017). However, our understanding of effective processes of engaging new communities of users in adapting and implementing evidence-based programs remains elusive.

In this symposium, we describe the processes of cultural and linguistic adaptation of the WITS Programs (www.witprograms.ca) for the prevention of peer victimization in elementary schools in Quebec Canada and in Brazilian, and Indigenous communities. Beyond the linguistic translation of the program’s open access resources, we specify several challenges and opportunities for program implementation that we needed to considered in the adaptations needed to implement the WITS programs including.

1. Social political framework of the location of your program.
2. State and definitions of violence in the schools and community.
3. Capacity of the schools and community (preservice teacher training, school readiness, police parent and community involvement, school climate, etc)
4. Assessing needs of schools and using baseline data to help them frame an approach
5. Consideration of the socioeconomic and unique context of schools.
6. Implications for start-up of programs
7. Challenges for fidelity and ethics of implementation
8. Implication for design of implementation and effectiveness evaluations

We present three mixed-method evaluations of the WITS programs adaptations occurring in three languages in different sites. These include English speaking Indigenous Communities in Canada, French speaking schools in Quebec, Canada, and Portuguese speaking schools in Brazil. We identified challenges specific to each effort but also found that despite identified differences between schools’ cultures, judicial systems, environments (urban, suburban, rural), SES, culturally homogeneity, and pedagogy; there was significant common ground between them concerning the vision of how best to prevent and reduce violence in schools.