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Home --> Publications -->ENewsletters -->October 2008

Preview of Year 2 Implementation Technical Assistance
On October 24, 2008, the National Center hosted “Focus on Implementation: Year 2,” a Webinar that introduced FY 2007 SS/HS grantees to the types of support they can expect from the National Center around program implementation. During the Webinar, participants heard from technical assistance specialists (TASs), who introduced Year 2 events, and from 2006 SS/HS project directors and their TASs, who discussed their experiences and answered participant questions. To view a presentation that introduces Year 2 events, visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/events/center-events/SSHS_interactivepiece.ppt. This Webinar will be hosted again on November 6, 2008, 2:00–3:30 p.m. (ET). FY 2007 project directors who would like to participate in this Webinar can still register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/697793249.

Upcoming SS/HS Grantee Meetings
Over the next few months, the National Center will host a number of meetings that will allow grantees and TASs to meet and collaborate on issues such as planning for sustainability and program implementation. Details and registration information for each of these events will be sent to grantees as they become available. Grantees should contact their assigned TASs if they have any questions regarding these events.

• Strategic Planning for Sustainability: FY 2006 grantees are required to attend this three-day conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 18–20, 2008. Participants will be led through a team process focused on overcoming implementation challenges, sustaining valued program activities and services, and creating opportunities to effect systems change in their communities. The Communication Team will provide specific communications strategies and skills designed to support grantees’ sustainability plans. Plenary and break-out sessions will include a focus on identifying potential audiences and partners for sustainability, crafting resonant messages and stories, and delivering those messages in ways that will increase long-term support.
• Leading Implementation for Systems Change: FY 2007 grantees are required to bring a team to this two day workshop in Albuquerque, NM on December 9–10, 2008. Teams should include key leadership representatives from law enforcement, juvenile justice, mental health, and the school district. This training event will include plenary sessions and team work sessions focused on developing local leadership of the SS/HS initiative and comprehensive and sustainable implementation of programs.
• Project Directors’ Consortia: FY 2005, FY 2006, and FY 2007 project directors are invited to attend this meeting, January 8–9, 2009, at which they will have the opportunity to meet and learn from one another’s experiences. Work sessions will address topics that will be determined before the meeting based on input provided by grantee sites.

2008–2009 National Rural Behavioral Health Webinar Series
On November 12, 2008, the Federal Interagency Rural Behavioral Health Workgroup will host the first in a series of Webinars that aim to discuss behavioral health issues faced by rural families and their children. This first Webinar, “Returning Home—Rural Veterans and Their Families,” will take place 4:00–5:30 p.m. (ET). Participants will learn about the realities of rural National Guardsmen and their families as they reunite following deployment in Iraq. Lt. Col. Anthony Mohatt, Commander 2-137 IN (KSARNG), will share his perspectives on returning home, giving participants a better understanding of how to serve returning veterans. Details on how to join this Webinar will be made available shortly.

To learn more about the Webinar series, please visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/events/center-events/ruralbhwebinars.pdf.

For additional resources on rural mental and behavioral health, visit the Rural Portal: Healthy Children and Families at http://www.promoteprevent.org/rural. This portal was developed through the collaboration of several technical assistance centers of SAMHSA/CMHS grant programs (including the National Center). It provides a valuable technical assistance resource to communities working to transform systems for children’s behavioral health in rural and frontier areas.

The following is a summary of key findings from the fields of education, mental health, violence prevention, and/or youth substance abuse prevention.

Implementing and Sustaining Research-Based Innovations
The University of New Mexico Prevention Research Center studied seven prevention programs to illustrate how research-based prevention programs, policies, and practices (“innovations”) can be implemented and sustained in the “real world.”

The Prevention Research Center team predicated their effort on the research that shows that prevention programs, policies, and practices are not adapted and sustained simply because they are effective. Thus, there must be factors that support and interfere with this process. They used seven case studies to explore the relationships among the three systems involved in the application of prevention research. These systems include:

• Resource system: “researchers, developers, trainers, consultants, services, products, and materials that provide an innovation”
• User systems: “individuals, organizations, agencies, groups, and networks that adopt, implement, and maintain an innovation”
• Linkage systems: “linking agents, members of the resource or user system, or an interested third party, who serve as connections between resource and user systems”
  

The study cited the following issues as being especially critical to the ability to successfully adapt and sustain (and disseminate) research-based innovations:

• Participation by the user system is essential. Research-based innovations were effectively implemented and sustained when there was a strong collaboration between the user system and the resource system or when the user system played the major leadership role. Efforts failed when the active leadership came solely from the resource system.
• Program champions among stakeholders require an expertise in public health and a commitment to addressing controversial issues. The number of stakeholders is not as important as their willingness to engage in the types of confrontations often needed to adapt a new policy, program, or practice.
• Participation by those in the user system is even more important in sustaining an innovation than it is in adapting the innovation—especially when the adaptation is supported by the resource system or the linking system.
• Program champions do not have to be individuals who are the most highly placed in the community. Champions who have informal power and straddle systems can be very effective.
• Although members of the resource and user systems can create their own links to one another, it is often more effective for an objective third party to function as a linking system:
  • A third party is more likely than a resource system to understand the adaptations that need to be made, the context that must be established, and the resources that must be available if a research-based innovation is to be adapted and sustained.
  • A third party is more likely than a user system to recognize when the research is being used symbolically to legitimize the old ways of doing things rather than to actually implement an innovation.

It is essential for the linking system to bring the research about implementation and the dissemination of innovation to those in the resource and user systems.

• Adequate resources are vital for both adaptation and sustainability. Funding needs to be ongoing and flexible. Those in the resource system are often unaware of the level of resources needed to implement and sustain research-based innovations in the “real world.”

“A Framework for Research Utilization Applied to Seven Case Studies,” by Jeffrey Peterson, Everett Rogers, Leslie Cunningham-Sabo, and Sally Davis, was published in the July 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (Volume 33, Number 1S).

This section highlights a few updates from the prevention field. Please go to http://library.promoteprevent.org for more news items and resources.

APA Task Force Reports on Resilience and Strength in African American Children and Adolescents
The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents recently released a report that identifies factors that contribute to the healthy development of African American children and adolescents. The report, Resilience in African American Children and Adolescents: A Vision for Optimal Development, encourages a paradigm shift from an emphasis on risk to exploring the complex interactive process of resilience in African American youth. It offers a vision of optimal development in African American youth within the following domains in the contexts of peers, families, schools, and communities: identity development, emotional development, social development, cognitive development, and physical health and development. The report offers recommendations to the field on how to transform its approach to African American children and youth in the areas of research, practice, education, and policy. Read more at http://www.apa.org/pi/cyf/resiliencerpt.pdf.

America’s Safe Schools Week Observed by School Administrators and Public Officials
During America’s Safe Schools Week (October 19–25, 2008), sponsored by the National School Safety Center, school administrators and public officials across the country observed the progress being made by the hundreds of school, district, state, and national programs that aim to create safer schools. Meanwhile, this campaign served as an opportunity to further motivate key education and law enforcement policymakers and community stakeholders to continue advocating school safety. For a collection of resources and information on school safety, visit “In the Spotlight: School Safety” on the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Web site (http://www.ncjrs.gov/spotlight/school_safety/Summary.html). Visitors to this page will find links to examples of state and local initiatives that address school safety, publications on bullying and zero tolerance, and other related resources from nationally recognized agencies and organizations.

Report Examines Mental Health Service Use among Youth
Mental health services for children and youth are provided in a variety of settings that include community mental health centers, schools, and general medical practice settings. As a result, many leading youth mental health service delivery models call for the coordination of care and the adoption of a “no wrong door” approach to accessing mental health services. A recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) report provides data on the use of youth mental health services from the 2005 and 2006 surveys, addressing differences in age, gender, and service setting. This report is published by the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and is available at http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/Prevline/pdfs/NSDUH08-0925/MHS_Use_Aged12-17_4p.pdf.

The Grant Opportunities page is updated regularly with announcements of current public and private grant competitions. Here is one of the listings you will find:

Title: The Braitmayer Foundation Grants
Funder: The Braitmayer Foundation
Description: The Foundation is interested in K–12 education throughout the United States. Of particular interest are curricular and school reform initiatives and preparation of and professional development opportunities for teachers, particularly those which encourage people of high ability and diverse background to enter and remain in K–12 teaching.
Award: Up to $35,000
Eligibility: The Braitmayer Foundation is pleased to have its grants used anywhere in the United States as seed money, challenge grants, or to match other grants to the recipient organizations. The foundation does not make grants to individuals, multiyear grants, nor grants for general operating, endowment purposes, or building programs. Unless a small percentage of the total amount requested, normally the foundation does not make grants for childcare, pre-kindergarten, after school programs, or for equipment, including hardware, software, and books.
Deadline: June 1, 2009
For more information: http://www.braitmayerfoundation.org/guid.htm

We regularly add to a detailed listing of conferences and events occurring within the National Center and across the nation. For example,

Date: November 16–19, 2008
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Title: 2008 National Dropout Prevention Network Conference
Sponsor: National Dropout Prevention Network
Description: The 20th Annual National Dropout Prevention Network Conference has invited presenters to share in the areas of (1) curriculum; (2) assessment; (3) instruction; (4) student, family, and community support; (5) planning and organization; (6) school culture; (7) professional learning; and (8) leadership.
Web site: http://www.dropoutprevention.org/conferen/conferen.htm#2008_NDPN

Please visit the Events and Opportunities page at http://www.promoteprevent.org/events for a complete listing.