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Five
Phases of Implementation
     
Phase 1: Get Started
In the first phase, community leaders concerned with
preventing youth problem behaviors assess
community readiness to adopt the CTC system, as well as local barriers
to implementation. Other
major activities during this initial phase of implementation include
identifying one or two key leaders
to champion CTC, hiring a coordinator to manage CTC activities, and
obtaining school district
support for conducting a youth survey that will provide data on local
patterns of youth risk, protection,
and behaviors.
Materials
Phase 2: Organize, Introduce, and Involve
The major task in phase two is to identify and train
two pivotal groups of individuals from the community
in the principles of prevention science and the CTC prevention system.
The first group consists
of influential community leaders (e.g., the mayor, police chief, school
superintendent; and business,
faith, community, social service, and media leaders). The main
responsibilities of this group are
to secure resources for preventive interventions and identify candidates
for the CTC Community
Board. This board constitutes the second pivotal group needed to advance
the CTC approach. Among
the board’s tasks are developing a vision statement to guide its
prevention work and establishing
workgroups to tackle the details involved in putting this vision into
action.
Materials
Phase 3: Develop a Community Profile
In phase three, the board develops a community profile
of risk factors, protective factors, and problem
behaviors among community youth; targets two to five of these factors
for preventive action;
and identifies existing prevention resources and gaps. (Social
scientists use the term protective factors
to refer to influences that protect an individual against risk or
problem behavior; for example,
having involved parents is a protective factor against delinquency for
many adolescents.)
The major source of data for the community profile is the CTC Youth
Survey,4 a questionnaire that
students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 fill out in school. This information
is supplemented by archival
data (e.g., statistics on school dropout rates and teenage pregnancy or
arrest records). The resulting
community profile provides baseline data against which areas targeted
for intervention can be evaluated.
Related to this, board members survey service providers to measure the
extent to which high quality,
research-based prevention programs that address particular youth
problems are already
available in the community and then identify existing gaps in prevention
efforts.
Materials
Phase 4:
Create a Community Action Plan
In phase four, board members use information gathered
in phase three to develop a Community Action Plan. The board chooses
policies and/or
programs from
the Model or Promising Programs
lists on the Blueprints for Violence Prevention website at
www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/ or
from
the CTC Prevention Strategies Guide, a compendium of prevention
policies and
programs found effective in changing risk and protective factors
and problem behaviors in at least one high-quality controlled trial.
These tested and effective policies and
programs include parent training
programs, such as Incredible Years
Parent Training, Functional Family Therapy, and Strong African
American Families;
after-school programs, such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters; and
school-based programs, such as Life Skills Training,
Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) and the Good
Behavior Game."
Materials
Phase 5: Implement and Evaluate the Community Action Plan
The last phase consists of implementing the Community
Action Plan. Training to implement the
plan emphasizes the importance of adhering faithfully to the content,
amount, and manner of delivery
specified in program protocols. Through this training, board members and
program staff learn to
track implementation progress, assess changes in participant outcomes,
and make adjustments to
achieve program objectives. Monitoring is accomplished through the use
of program-specific implementation
checklists, observations, and surveys administered to participants
before and after the program
has been introduced. During this phase, the board also reaches out to
local media as a way to educate
the community about the rationale for the program and generate public
support for the new preventive
interventions.
Materials
Staff
Training Materials:
- Training
of trainers
- Training of process
facilitator
- Training of coordinators |
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