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External funding for Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development concluded in July 2024. With input from our scientific advisory board and staff, Blueprints will be put into dormancy until it is possible to secure a sustainable, high-impact path forward. The dormancy process entails updating information on the existing programs listed on our website and ensuring that Blueprints will remain freely available and searchable while in dormancy. This process will be completed by June 2025. Read more about the future of Blueprints here.

Blueprints Future FAQ

External funding for Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development concluded in July 2024. With input from our scientific advisory board and staff, Blueprints will be put into dormancy until it is possible to secure a sustainable, high-impact path forward. The dormancy process entails updating information on the existing programs listed on our website and ensuring that Blueprints will remain freely available and searchable while in dormancy. This process will be completed by June 2025. Read more about the future of Blueprints here.

Blueprints Future FAQ

Man holding child paintingThe Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development mission is to provide a comprehensive registry of scientifically proven and scalable interventions that prevent or reduce the likelihood of antisocial behavior and promote a healthy course of youth development and adult maturity. We also advocate for evidence-based interventions locally and nationally and produce publications on the importance of adopting high-scientific standards when evaluating what works in social and crime prevention interventions.

Most programs implemented in communities to improve youths’ lives, unfortunately, do not produce the hoped-for effects when rigorously evaluated, or cost more to implement than they produce in benefits. Blueprints promotes only those interventions with the strongest scientific support.

Interventions certified by Blueprints are family, school, and community-based and target all levels of need—from broad prevention programs that promote positive behaviors while decreasing negative behaviors to highly-targeted programs for at-risk children, troubled teens or formerly incarcerated adults that get them back on track.

At Blueprints, we identify, recommend, and disseminate programs for youth, families and communities that, based on scientific evaluations, have strong evidence of effectiveness. Those programs are rated as either Promising, Model or Model Plus. When searching our registry of programs, each result will indicate the program rating. Thank you for your interest in our proven programs.

The Blueprints mission is to provide a registry of evidence-based interventions that are effective in reducing antisocial behavior and promoting a healthy course of youth development and adult maturity.

Most programs implemented in communities to improve youths’ lives, unfortunately, do not produce the hoped-for effects when rigorously evaluated, or cost more to implement than they produce in benefits. Blueprints promotes only those interventions with the strongest scientific support. It does so by providing a list of interventions certified as Promising, Model or Model Plus that communities can adopt with confidence.

Interventions certified by Blueprints are family, school, and community-based and target all levels of need — from broad prevention programs that promote positive behaviors while decreasing negative behaviors to highly-targeted programs for at-risk children, troubled teens or formerly incarcerated adults that get them back on track.

Select below to learn more about Blueprints’ role in each area

For practitioners, policy-makers and funders interested in adopting a Blueprints-certified program for your community:

For program developers and evaluators interested in understanding Blueprints certification standards:

Blueprints-Certified Program Tiers

Blueprints Certified Program Tiers

At Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development, we identify, recommend, and disseminate programs for youth, families and communities that, based on scientific evaluations, have strong evidence of effectiveness. Those programs are rated as either Promising, Model or Model Plus. When searching our registry of programs, each result will indicate the program rating.

Promising

Model

Model Plus

Standards of Evidence

Each intervention certified by Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development has been reviewed by an independent panel of evaluation experts and determined to meet a clear set of rigorous scientific standards. Programs meeting these standards have demonstrated at least some electiveness for changing targeted behavioral outcomes. The following chart highlights the evidence criteria for receiving Blueprints certification. 

Evidence-Based Evidence Continuum Type of Evidence Confidence Continuum Blueprints Program
Experimentally Proven
(Ready for Scale)
Independently Conducted
Randomized Control Trial
with Replication and
Sustained Effects
Very High Model Program
Experimentally Proven
(Ready for Scale)
Randomized Control Trial
with Replication and
Sustained Effects
High Model Program
Experimental Randomized Control Trial
or Quasi-Experimental Design
with Replication, including:
Regression Discontinuity,
Comparative Interrupted
Time Series and
Instrumental Variable Analysis
Moderate Promising Program
N/A Research Informed Evaluations with
No Control Group
Low Not Blueprints Certified
N/A Opinion Informed Satisfaction Survey
Personal Experience
Testimonials
Anecdotes
Very Low Not Blueprints Certified

Contact

Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development
University of Colorado Boulder
Institute of Behavioral Science
UCB 483, Boulder, CO 80309

Email: blueprints@colorado.edu

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Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development is
currently funded by Arnold Ventures (formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation) and historically has received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.