Changing Lives: The Right Program Makes A Difference

Implementing With Success

Armed with an understanding of best practices, available models, and promising programs in prevention, violence prevention collaborations can begin to plan and implement one or more interventions for one or more specific groups. Before you embark, practitioners advise that you spend time and money up front, assessing your coalition’s readiness to plan and implement the program. (See ACTION Pamphlet 1 “Getting to Outcomes” for questions you might pose during an assessment process.)

When assessing readiness, focus on community needs, resources, and commitment, then on more specific details of those identified resources. Practitioners stress the importance of administrative support (including resources, leadership, power, and communication), agency stability (low staff turnover), agency structure (size and timely problem solving), consistent philosophies, and linkages with other agencies.

It is important to build support at the site where the program will be implemented, whether it is a school, a mental health facility, or some other community institution. Some practitioners recommend a feasibility visit to the site to determine whether the program as originally proposed still fits the need and to gauge the commitment of the onsite staff to the program. It is equally important to have a clear implementation plan, which should be kept in mind during the feasibility visit. Experienced practitioners from around the country advise the following steps to successful implementation.

Carefully choose and adapt programs
A successful program is well matched to the needs of the target population and to the intended outcomes. Program “fit” may be defined as the degree to which a selected evidence-based program fits within the community context. There is no “one size fits all” intervention for problems like youth violence, nor is there a “perfect” fit for any community. But you can ensure the best fit possible by following these three steps:
- First, identify the evidence-based program (or programs) that most closely match your target population’s culture, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location—and your resources.
- Second, institute adaptations that achieve both fidelity and community fit.
- Third, work continuously to improve and fine-tune the intervention.
Even though an intervention may seem just right, if it is not what the target population wants, it will not succeed. Also, it is important not to become discouraged when people do not respond in the way you expected. Before you change your implementation, though, you need to find out from your participants what was wrong with your first attempt—to avoid making a similar mistake.

Programs can be modified to adapt to the types of stakeholders involved. Implementers emphasize the importance of partners understanding each other’s organizational structures and considering them, along with delivery methods, when modifying a program. This attention builds a strong basis for program continuity. Successful implementers report being “like willows and bending,” tailoring interventions while keeping in mind the delicate balance between program fidelity and modifications that address community needs.

Researchers echo this need for balance, noting that even when a program has been shown to work under the strict conditions imposed, it sometimes must be modified to fit a particular community. The more a program is changed, however, the less likely it is that program outcomes can be attributed to the intervention. How closely a program follows the original model can be measured by a process evaluation, which determines what activities were implemented and the quality, strengths, and weaknesses of the implementation. Program modification may occur continuously; feedback helps staff and volunteers fine-tune activities to strengthen the program over time. (See ACTION Pamphlet 4 for more information on evaluation as part of an ongoing feedback and decision-making process.)

Be prepared for changes in context
Projects are implemented in a particular context—a moment in time. Perhaps the impetus for your violence prevention initiative came from a charismatic community leader who was touched personally by violence, and now that individual has been transferred across the country, leaving a void in your collaboration. Perhaps a key supporter, the school superintendent, has now decided to focus on raising standardized scores and, as a result, has instructed key school personnel not to take on any new projects.

Whatever the events, you cannot expect that the initial level of energy or enthusiasm of collaborators will remain constant. It is important, therefore, to continually monitor the context of your program and be prepared to reestablish key organizational support if necessary. Of course, the stronger and more viable your collaboration, the better able you will be to weather contextual changes. (See ACTION Pamphlet 2 for more about forming your collaboration and ACTION Pamphlet 5 for more on sustaining it.)

Make sure you have adequate human resources
Successful program implementers know that an intangible element in the effectiveness of programs is the people involved: the key leaders at the implementation site who can champion the program by involving and motivating others. The program coordinators, the teachers, counselors, and others who interact regularly with students; and everyone else who interacts with the youth should have opportunities to meet together and support one another. Practitioners recommend strongly that program coordinators should be paid staff or consultants, not volunteers. An intervention led by individuals who possess appropriate knowledge and skills is apt to work better than one led by people who are uninformed. Beyond skills, though, are important nonspecific (and nonmeasurable) factors such as engagement, belief in the project, creativity, and a big-picture perspective of the potential results of the project. In assessing the adequacy of your human resources, consider the following:
When Olympic Educational Service District 114 placed 39 Behavior Intervention Specialists in elementary and middle/junior high schools with a grant from the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, nearly 4,000 students were served in the first 16 months. About 75 percent of the children who entered the program were having one or more difficulties with their school functioning, including problems with school and classroom behaviors, relations with peers, and academics. Most children also had one or more indicators of aggressive behaviors, and a majority had some history of violence.

The Behavior Intervention Specialists worked with students individually and in groups. They contacted families at home to provide information and/or referrals. At the end of the school year, in an anonymous evaluation, middle/junior high children reported reductions in the use of threats (73%), fighting (72%), and trouble at school (65%), and improvements in controlling anger (56%). School staff reported that "Parents feel less helpless, more connected to the school, more willing to set up a plan to work with their child, and more cooperative with the school."

Leadership’s commitment to the program
Many times, organizations that receive funding are not truly ready to implement a science-based program. This can be a challenge. Without commitment, it is impossible to guarantee that everything will be in place to implement the program and to promote effective communication, decision making, and conflict resolution. Indications that an organization is committed to the program include high-level promises of support (e.g., space, funding), along with the organizational leadership’s clear understanding of the program and concern about evaluation results.

Staff credentials and experience
Your program may require personnel who can facilitate interagency collaborations, provide leadership in a school, or mobilize groups (such as parents or media) for specific tasks. Examine what job skills the selected program requires and ensure that you have staff who have the needed skills.

Staff training
Staff members may need to be trained to implement the program. In addition, others may need training for new roles to ensure that the program runs smoothly. For example, one school trained school administrators to act as substitute teachers so classes would be covered when program staff members were away at training sessions. Training (and subsequent technical assistance and on-site supervision) must be productive and consistent, and implementers must be clear about their expectations. Implementers should look for incremental change and should also help front-line staff increase their understanding of the need for fidelity. A technical assistance package should be developed to facilitate the site’s independence at some specified point in the future.

Energetic and enthusiastic staff and volunteers
Think for a moment about two classrooms in the same school, composed of youth matched in all demographic and achievement characteristics. Each class is engaged in a violence prevention curriculum. Both teachers demonstrate equal mastery of the curriculum, and both have similar educational and experiential backgrounds. Each teacher follows the curriculum. At the end of the year, youth in one class evidence significant changes in risk and protective factors related to youth violence; youth in the other class do not. How does this happen? A survey of students reveals the critical difference: They report that Teacher A just presents the curriculum, but Teacher B is animated and available, demonstrates respect and support for the students, and engages them in the material.

Be willing—and eager—to work with others
Working with different organizations where various disiplines are represented is challenging but worthwhile. It requires professionals to be willing to consider each other’s perspectives and work together in an atmosphere of trust and healthy respect for individual and organizational differences. Those who do so report an enhanced sense of accomplishment.

Encourage shared ownership of the intervention
Shared ownership means that different groups have a proprietary interest in the program. Potential implementers should think about how they can involve different groups in decision making and the intervention itself. The goal of shared ownership should be clear as well (and should have been reflected in the previously completed work of building a collaboration). Teachers or faith-based stakeholders, for example, who participate in the program planning process and understand the rationale for the intervention are likely to buy into the time it takes to gain the needed skills and work with families of the children involved in the intervention.

There are three obvious owners of a program: the developer, the implementer, and the site. The owners at the site are the family members of targeted youth and the front-line staff—teachers, recreation directors, and counselors—who work directly with youth. Whether or not the developer receives compensation for expanded implementation of the program, she/he wants confirmation of the program’s efficacy. The implementer, having made a commitment of resources and energy to the program, wants it to be successful and to result in positive outcomes for the target population. Ownership by the site is (or should be) equally important. However, in their zeal to solve a community problem, implementers, and to a lesser extent developers, sometimes “present” their intervention as a “gift” to the site—which, of course, the recipient should welcome warmly! Few, if any, potential intervention sites will respond positively to a done deal. They will not be pleased by the opportunity to receive a collaboration’s attention and intervention if they have not been involved from the beginning in the needs assessment, the collaboration-building process, and the choice of program.

Extend your support systems
Attending to your principal support system—stakeholders— after the program is in place is as important as it was when the community came together initially to address youth violence. Try to have face-to-face, one-on-one contact whenever possible, and use a variety of strategies to obtain their support. Consider joining another coalition or becoming a subcommittee of another group as well. Interact with stakeholders in different ways, and be creative in obtaining their input. Employ multiple communication methods, and always keep stakeholders informed. Continue to seek their input and put their advice to use, so they will keep on contributing.

Allow stakeholders to say who should be at the table. Practitioners urge potential implementers to understand that you are working with communities, alongside community residents; you should not be leading, pushing, or dragging community members to endorse your program. They need to see and feel your passion for the project, and you must always be aware of the need to change your pace or your direction to remain consistent with community issues and concerns. (See ACTION Pamphlet 5 for more information on substainability.) Stakeholders come to the table with built-in barriers to participation, including stress, different agendas, lack of skills, and lack of time to be involved. It can be helpful to integrate the prevention initiative with other mandated activities to make the best use of limited time. Make sure that all stakeholders have ample opportunity to be full participants. Ratify their relationship to the project with Memos of Understanding and other formal instruments. Help everyone understand their ongoing role in sustaining the program through investment of their own resources. Address instances of lack of knowledge or skills so all those involved can be full participants. Spend time ensuring that all owners understand consensus-building and the importance of their input. Provide instant gratification—document the successes along the way to long-term change.

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