Focus on Communities That Care
Building Community Collaborations for Families: What Works? Focus on Communities That Care esults from a seven-state experimental trial involving 24 factors center on strong bonding to family, school, community, and small to medium sized communities show that within four peers. Appropriate prevention programs are then chosen from the Ryears of adopting Communities Th at Care, communities CTC Prevention Strategies Guide. Th e CTC Prevention Strategies can reduce the incidence of delinquent behaviors and of alcohol, Guide includes descriptions of 56 programs—all of which have tobacco, and smokeless tobacco use, as well as the prevalence of been found to eff ectively reduce substance abuse, delinquency, teen alcohol use, binge drinking, smokeless tobacco use, and delinquent pregnancy, school drop-out, and violence.2 1 behavior among young people by the spring of grade eight. Each community coalition develops a unique action plan to In October 2009, Richard Catalano, PhD, co-developer of implement and evaluate the prevention programs. Th is action plan Communities Th at Care and director of the Social Development involves building and sustaining collaborative relationships among Research Group at the University of Washington, led a special policy makers, organizations, service providers and practitioners, Urban Health Institute (UHI) symposium aimed at exploring how and adjusting programming to meet the community’s goals. community-level interventions can improve the health and well CTC is evaluated through the Community Youth being of children and families. Development Study (CYDS), a fi ve-year intervention study Communities Th at Care (CTC) is a prevention system designed to determine the eff ectiveness of CTC in promoting designed to reduce adolescent substance use and delinquency healthy youth development and reducing levels of youth drug use, through the selection of eff ective preventive interventions tailored violence, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and school dropout.
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