Tom – Page 5 – Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development

Issue No. 5

We look forward to helping elevate evidence-based programs by sharing information about our programs and what we are doing at Blueprints. Enjoy!

A Letter From Our Director:
The 7th Blueprints Conference is Almost Here

There’s excitement in the air as we approach the date of our 7th biennial Blueprints Conference. This is a fantastic opportunity for persons engaged in youth violence prevention and healthy youth development to come together to network, share information, and learn from experts in the field. The overarching goal of the conference is to provide information on evidence-based programs and guidance and tools to help consumers implement these programs successfully.

Please join us on April 30 for the preconference and May 1-2, 2018, for the main conference in Westminster, Colorado, for this unique experience that unites a broad spectrum of participants from policy, program development, research, and implementation. We promise that you will not be disappointed!

Learn more about what you can expect to find at this year’s conference.

Sincerely,

Sharon Mihalic
Director, Blueprints Initiative
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
Institute of Behavioral Science
University of Colorado Boulder
sharon.mihalic@colorado.edu

Tom Cook, a member of the Blueprints Advisory Board, recently spoke at the Institute of Behavioral Science at CU-Boulder on (1) the standards of the different program clearinghouses and what constitutes acceptable evidence, and (2) when quasi-experimental designs reliably reproduce estimates from randomized experiments.

Featured Model Program
Functional Family Therapy (FFT)
Blueprints Certified: 1996
Ages Served: 11-18
Program Outcome: Delinquency and Criminal Behavior, Illicit Drug Use
Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is a short-term family therapy intervention and juvenile diversion program helping at-risk children and delinquent youth, ages 11-18, to overcome adolescent behavior problems, conduct disorder, substance abuse and delinquency?

Learn more about Functional Family Therapy…

Featured Promising Program
Communities That Care (CTC)
Blueprints Certified: 2008
Ages Served: Infant to Early Adulthood (0-22)
Program Outcome: Alcohol, Delinquency and Criminal Behavior, Tobacco, Violence
Communities That Care (CTC) is a prevention system designed to reduce levels of adolescent delinquency and substance use through the selection and use of effective preventive interventions tailored to a community’s specific profile of risk and protection.

Learn more about Communities That Care…

Join the Center for CTC and state partners for a webinar:
Using Communities That Care to Boost Your Prevention Infrastructure
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
11 a.m. Pacific / 12 p.m. Mountain / 1 p.m. Central / 2 p.m. Eastern

Blueprints News & Resources
Relevant articles and helpful resources

Here are a few articles that feature some of our Blueprint’s Model Programs:

The Body Project Promotes Positivity (The Body Project)
Could amnesty for alcohol-related emergencies save lives? (BASICS)
New program seeks to keep children out of the criminal justice system (MST)
Mother, Nurse Partnership Program Becomes Permanent (Nurse-Family Partnership)
Program promotes social and emotional learning (PATHS)
An Imperfect Solution: The Use of Juvenile Hearing Boards in Reforming the Juvenile Justice System (MST, FFT)
Childhood experiences gets under the skin: for better and worse (Nurse-Family Partnership)

Register for the 2018 Blueprints Conference today!
Join us in Colorado this spring for our bi-annual conference. Early-bird registration is now open and it’s shaping up to be another great event.

Legislative Update
Stay Informed
Legislative support is key to the elevation of our programs. We would encourage you to keep an eye on these bills as they progress.

Our mailing address is:
University of Colorado Boulder | Institute of Behavioral Science | Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309

Interpersonal Psychotherapy – Adolescent Skills Training

Straight Talk on Evidence Highlights the EAAA Sexual Assault Resistance Education Program

Straight Talk on Evidence seeks to highlight programs with highly-credible evidence of meaningful effects. They evaluated the research evaluating the EAAA program and concluded that the evidence of its effectiveness was highly credible.

Read the full evidence report here.

Reducing The Risk

Issue No. 4

Welcome to the Blueprints Bulletin, our quarterly newsletter!
We look forward to helping elevate evidence-based programs by sharing information about our programs and what we are doing at Blueprints. Enjoy!

A Letter From Our Director:
Why Maintain a Rigorous Standard of Evidence – Lessons Learned

While the term evidence-based is commonly used, the actual level of scientific evidence supporting a given program varies widely, often lacking any credible research standards.

Throughout the 20 years of the Blueprints project, the most important lesson that we have learned, and have strived to impart, is that the standards for recognizing an evidence-based program must be high in order to maintain the public’s confidence.

In the earliest years of the project, Blueprints identified a model program, Quantum Opportunities, based upon a multi-site evaluation. This evaluation examined outcomes in each of the national sites participating in the study, and the demonstration appeared successful.

Later, a large multi-site replication by the Department of Labor found only a few, largely inconsistent effects, and some of the primary behavioral outcomes were negative at one of the replicating sites. This program was subsequently removed from the Blueprints list.

Learn why replication is such a critical part of the evaluation process of potential Blueprints Programs.

Sincerely,

Sharon Mihalic
Director, Blueprints Initiative
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
Institute of Behavioral Science
University of Colorado Boulder
sharon.mihalic@colorado.edu

Featured Model Program
Positive Action
Blueprints Certified: June 2013
Ages Served: Kindergarten – 8th Grade
Program Outcome: Academic Performance, Alcohol, Anxiety, Bullying, Delinquency and Criminal Behavior, Depression, Emotional Regulation, Illicit Drug Use, Positive Social/Prosocial Behavior, Sexual Risk Behaviors, Tobacco, Truancy – School Attendance, Violence
Positive Action is a comprehensive, school-based program for kindergarten through 8th grade students, which promotes learning through enhancement of self-concept.

Learn more about Positive Action…

Featured Promising Program
Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC)
Blueprints Certified: September 2015
Ages Served: High School and Early Adulthood
Program Outcome: Depression
Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC) is a 10-session group intervention designed to reduce depression and stress by enhancing the coping skills among high school adolescents and young adults displaying depression symptoms.

Learn more about Teaching Kids to Cope…

Blueprints News & Resources
Relevant articles and helpful resources

Here are a few articles that feature some of our Blueprint’s Programs:

Mentors Crucial to Curb Recidivism for Youths (Big Brothers Big Sisters)
The Body Project Aims to Prevent, Treat Eating Disorders (The Body Project)
For Healthy Families, Congress Must Fund Maternal Home Visits (Nurse-Family Partnership)
Auburn district: Truancy campaign about ‘students at home, in school and out of trouble’ (Functional Family Therapy, Multisystemic Therapy)
Credible, actionable evidence on how to prevent sexual assault on university campuses (EAAA Sexual Assault Resistance Education)

Mark Your Calendar!
Join us in Colorado next spring for our bi-annual conference. Speakers have been selected and it’s shaping up to be another great event.

Legislative Update
Stay Informed
Legislative support is key to the elevation of our programs. We would encourage you to keep an eye on these bills as they progress.

Our mailing address is:
University of Colorado Boulder | Institute of Behavioral Science | Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309

New Report: What’s Standing in the Way of the Spread of Evidence-based Programs?

The paper, by The Bridgespan Group, focuses on the role of purveyors, finding that while most purveyors are working hard to ensure effectiveness and fidelity of their programs, many are not focused on increasing the scale of the programs. This lack of proactive growth efforts appears to be a result of a lack of resources, mismatched expertise (e.g., researchers doing sales), and misaligned incentives that encourage developing programs with strong evidence of effectiveness, but not expanding them. The report offers recommendations for alleviating the situation to developers, purveyors, and funders of evidence-based programs.

Group Teen Triple P – Level 4

Promoting First Relationships?

Issue No. 3

A Letter From Our Director:
Major Reasons Programs Fail to Meet Blueprints Criteria

I’m often asked why a particular program did not meet Blueprints criteria. Most programs fail to receive Blueprints certification because their scientific evaluations have major limitations.

These limitations are such that apparently positive results could emerge not from participation in the program but from design problems in the evaluation. The most obvious problems are not having a control group (in which participants are compared to nonparticipants) or not assigning participants to the intervention and control groups randomly.

Keep reading to discover some of the most common methodological problems.

Sincerely,

Sharon Mihalic
Director, Blueprints Initiative
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
Institute of Behavioral Science
University of Colorado Boulder
sharon.mihalic@colorado.edu

Featured Model Program
Parent Management Training (PMT)
Blueprints Certified: September 2014
Ages Served: 4 – 12 years old
Program Outcome: Antisocial-Aggressive Behavior, Anxiety, Conduct Problems, Delinquency, Externalizing, Internalizing, Mental Health, Substance Use
Parent Management Training (PMT) is a group of theory-based training interventions aimed at reducing antisocial and behavior problems in children by providing parents with family management strategies and parenting skills.

Learn more about Parent Management Training…

Featured Promising Program
Promoting Health Among Teens!
Blueprints Certified: January 2017
Ages Served: Grade 6 and 7
Program Outcome: Sexual Risk Behavior
Blueprints recently certified Promoting Health Among Teens! (Comprehensive) and Promoting Health Among Teens! (Abstinence Only) programs as “Promising.” These two programs aim to intervene and prevent sexual involvement and risky sexual behaviors in adolescents through knowledge enhancement and skill building.

Learn more about Promoting Health Among Teens…

Blueprints News & Resources
Relevant articles and helpful resources

Here are a few articles that feature some of our Blueprint’s Model Programs:

Supporting Local Families (MST)
YWCA York receives grant to combat underage drinking (Project Towards No Drug Abuse)
VIDEO: LifeSkills Training, Making Education Fun for Children (LST)

Here are some helpful resources:

Mark Your Calendar!
Join us in Colorado next spring for our bi-annual conference. It’s shaping up to be another great event that you won’t want to miss.

Legislative Update
Stay Informed
Legislative support is key to the elevation of our programs. We would encourage you to keep an eye on these bills as they progress.

Our mailing address is:
University of Colorado Boulder | Institute of Behavioral Science | Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309

Author: Tom

Interpersonal Psychotherapy – Adolescent Skills Training

Straight Talk on Evidence Highlights the EAAA Sexual Assault Resistance Education Program

Reducing The Risk

New Report: What’s Standing in the Way of the Spread of Evidence-based Programs?

Group Teen Triple P – Level 4

Promoting First Relationships?

SRA Early Interventions in Reading

Contact

Sign up for Newsletter