Communities That Care (CTC) - A Potential Solution for Oklahoma's Youth Problems?

by John R. Walkup, Ph.D.

Most communities have programs in place to help at-risk youth avoid behavioral problems. These organizations have capable staff who work hard to help the local youth population. But usually such programs are underfunded and often operate in isolation.

As a result, the tight networks needed to coalesce the efforts of community-based organizations rarely materializes, even in rural towns. Many programs struggle to align their activities to evidence-based practices, operating primarily on anecdotal experience. Operating alone, such organizations lack the internal capacity to pursue grant funding and perform community outreach.

As a result, communities have withered in the onslaught of new youth behavioral problems. Methamphetamine production serves as the most high-profile problem, exacerbated by apathy and lack of ambition among youth.

Rather than a new program, smaller communities need an operating system that can rope together existing programs, plan their activities, monitor their effectiveness, provide feedback, and generate grant funding.

Sonia Hall of California Communities That Care introduced me to the Communities That Care (CTC) operating system about two years ago. Through grant funding, we were able to implement Communities That Care for a number of small Fresno County towns who have banded together to fight juvenile crime and drug use.

Over time, I have come to understand Communities That Care even more thoroughly. I consider it an ideal vehicle to improve the way of life for Oklahoma youth.

Communities That Care

Most of the communities that have adopted Communities That Care are urban or suburban. But much of Oklahoma's problems emanate from the smaller towns, for which Communities That Care offers an ideal solution.

From the Wikipedia entry:

Communities That Care is a program of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) in the office of the United States Government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). CTC is a coalition-based prevention operating system that uses a public health approach to prevent youth problem behaviors such as violence, delinquency, school drop out and substance abuse.[2] Using strategic consultation, training, and research-based tools, CTC is designed to help community stakeholders and decision makers understand and apply information about risk and protective factors, and programs that are proven to make a difference in promoting healthy youth development, in order to most effectively address the specific issues facing their community’s youth.

While sitting through a training session, the systematic, industrial-strength program management facet of CTC won me over. The CTC operating system ensures fidelity of the collective effort of organizations to an effective management protocol. Community organizations convene according to their own adopted schedule.

Faith-based organizations can play a central role in a local CTC, although convincing clergy that CTC should not be used as a vehicle for witnessing is sometimes tough.

Analogy

Communities That Care is an operating system that can help communities manage their own social service programs.

Distinguishing between CTC and social service programs has generated some confusion. So let me offer the following analogy I learned during one of the CTC training sessions:

Think about your computer. On your computer, you have many programs you use to carry out tasks such as Microsoft Word and Excel. These programs are analogous to social service programs, such as the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program. However, all of the programs on your computer are managed by an operating system, such as Microsoft Windows, that makes sure programs can start, run, and stop. Also, this operating system ensures that multiple programs (social service programs) can run at the same time and can work with each other. Communities That Care serves as Microsoft Windows for a community's social service programs.

Impact

So does Communities That Care work?

In 2007, J. David Hawkins led a team of University of Washington researchers to find out. By surveying a cohort of 4,407 fifth graders over two years, they were able to assess the effects of CTC on reducing (1) levels of targeted risk factors and (2) initiation of delinquent behavior and substance abuse.

In the Journal of Adolescent Health, they published their findings.

Mean levels of targeted risks for students in seventh grade were significantly lower in CTC communities compared with controls. Significantly fewer students in CTC communities than in control communities initiated delinquent behavior between grades 5 and 7. No significant intervention effect on substance use initiation by spring of seventh grade was observed.

The authors concluded:

CTC's theory of change hypothesizes that it takes from 2 to 5 years to observe community-level effects on risk factors and 5 or more years to observe effects on adolescent delinquency or substance use. The early findings indicating hypothesized effects of CTC on targeted risk factors and initiation of delinquent behavior are promising.

In a separate 2011 article with Brown as lead author, this research team focused on the impact of CTC on key leaders 4.5 years after CTC implementation. Among their findings:

• A higher stage of adoption of science-based prevention
• More willingness to provide funding for prevention.
• Significantly higher levels of adopting a science-based approach to prevention. 

Researchers also reported that "leaders in CTC communities with high poverty rates and large minority student populations reported higher levels of community norms against drug use and greater use of the social development strategy, respectively, than did leaders in control communities with similar characteristics."

Make no mistake about it, the credit for these gains rests with the people and organizations that carried out the activities needed to place youth on the right track. Again, Communities That Care is not a program; it's an operating system that ensures programs operate efficiently and effectively.

Grant Funding

Communities That Care is a grant writer's dream because it solves a lot of problems that have proven the bane of grant applications. 

Grant funding will come naturally to rural towns because Communities That Care

1. is evidence-based and has wide recognition among federal agencies,
2. features capacity-building as part of its overall structure,
3. draws together tight partnerships among local stakeholders,
4. relies on a systematic and uniform process toward achieving goals, and
5. establishes distinct milestones and assigning of responsibilities.

For example, the community of Parlier recently received $500,000 from the State of California to implement Communities That Care to solve its considerable gang problems. (Yes, I helped write the grant application.)

Thinking Out Loud

Should the state of Oklahoma consider adopting a youth development system like Communities That Care statewide?

Not sure, but it wouldn't be the first; the State of Pennsylvania deserves those honors. But I can see how the State of Oklahoma could

• acquaint communities to the possibilities offered by CTC,
• train stakeholders to implement CTC in their own communities,
• collect data and perform research on the effectiveness of CTC in rural communities,
• help local CTCs prepare grant applications,
• apply for funding from foundations and federal agencies so as to distribute the monies to local CTCs, and
• host state and regional conferences to help like-minded communities network among themselves.

What do you think?  I would love to hear feedback on this topic.

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Seeking training at your school or district centered on Cognitive Rigor or Depth of Knowledge?  Call me at (559) 903-4014 or email me at jwalkup@standardsco.com. 

We will discuss ways in which I can help your teachers boost student engagement and deep thinking in their classrooms. I offer workshops, follow-up classroom observation/coaching, and curriculum analysis to anywhere in the country (and even internationally).

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