POLICY AND PRACTICE Communities That Care
Reducing barriers to learning with Communities That Care
Research shows that some risk and
protective factors are shared predictors of a wide range of problems, so improvements can have an impact on multiple outcomes. Communities using CTC can simultaneously reach a set of prevention goals, such as reducing school failure while also preventing substance abuse and crime.
J David Hawkins, Margaret Kuklinski, and Abigail Fagan describe an effective approach for preventing some of the problems that can stand in the way of achievement and engagement in school
EDUCATORS WANT PUPILS TO COME TO school ready and motivated to learn, yet they are all too familiar with barriers to engagement and achievement. Many risks threaten today’s young people and can lead to other problems, like substance abuse and delinquency, which themselves jeopardise pupils’ ability to succeed. Communities That Care (CTC) is a community-based prevention system designed to reduce risks affecting pupils and increase positive infl uences, with the overall aim of fostering healthy development.
Implemented in more than 500 communities in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe, CTC has been shown, in well-designed research, to improve outcomes for young people. It also provides an effective process for increasing community ownership and shared responsibility for addressing concerns. The burden of change does not fall on schools alone. At the heart of CTC is a broad coalition of stakeholders invested in young people, including school personnel, who work in concert to achieve better youth outcomes. Success is contingent on the coalition
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assessing needs, understanding the extent of young people’s problem behaviours, using evidence-based strategies to prevent these behaviours, and monitoring progress towards goals. Goals often include reducing learning barriers, like drug use and criminal behaviour, in the schools and larger community, and increasing the odds of school success.
Decreasing risk and enhancing protection to improve outcomes CTC takes a risk- and protection-focused approach to prevention based on research showing that reducing risk factors, like family confl ict or associating with drug- using peers, can improve important outcomes like staying in school. Enhancing protective factors also improves outcomes. Young people who have opportunities to participate in positive activities and develop skills, and who receive recognition for their efforts, are much more likely to develop a strong commitment to schooling and strong bonds with adults who are positive role models. This reduces their chances of problem behaviour.
Better: Evidence-based Education winter 2012
Community coalitions: Essential to CTC success CTC is designed fl exibly to respond to different community needs and priorities. It is “owned and operated” locally. The fi rst step is to establish a prevention coalition of key leaders, such as representatives from the local authority and the police, as well as representatives from diverse sectors, including education, social services, business, and healthcare. CTC requires broad-based community support to succeed. The emphasis is on identifying prevalent concerns and using the most effective strategies to address them, without assigning blame or expecting one sector (eg, schools), to solve problems alone. Over the course of a year, the coalition is trained to use the CTC system. Who better to report on young people’s concerns than young people themselves? To assess levels of risk, protection, and problem behaviour in the community, coalitions in the US use the 200-item Communities That Care Youth Survey, which secondary school pupils complete in one class period. Questions cover friendships, extracurricular involvement, school performance and engagement, family relationships, and problem behaviour, such as whether and how frequently they have used cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs, or engaged in anti-social behaviour. Coalitions use information to develop a community-specifi c profi le of risk, protection, and problem behaviour. These results help coalitions prioritise prevention activities. Without specifi c goals, efforts may be spread too thin to make a difference. Typically, communities prioritise two to fi ve elevated risk factors for improvement. Coalitions then select prevention
programmes addressing their elevated risks from a menu of scientifi cally proven programmes. Some are school based, while others are family focused, or are after-school activities such as mentoring or tutoring
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