A Letter from Our Director
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.
Keynote presenters include Delbert Elliott, Founding Director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, and Director of the Blueprints Initiative. Dr. Elliott is a renowned advocate for the widespread use of evidence-based programs. In his farewell address to our conference, he will discuss the major challenges facing registries of prevention programs and practices and proposed strategies for addressing these challenges.
James Mercy, Director, Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will discuss the cross-cutting impact that successful violence prevention can have on a broad range of health and social challenges such as mental illness, chronic disease, and even some infectious diseases such as HIV.
David Hawkins, Emeritus Endowed Professor of Prevention and Founding Director of the Social Development Research Group, University of Washington, will outline seven essential actions that could unleash the power of prevention and substantially reduce the prevalence of behavioral health problems and inequality in health and behavior outcomes in the U.S. population.
Forty-four 90-minute workshops will cover broad topical areas such as Blueprints programs, implementation supports, financing and sustaining programs, effective leadership and policy strategies. Preconferences will include day-long presentations by the purveyors of Communities That Care and Functional Family Therapy (featured below). Other preconference sessions will focus on prevention strategies for addressing the opioid epidemic, how to understand the evidence in evidence-based programs, and issues related to implementing LifeSkills Training (a middle school drug and violence prevention program).
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!
Please register for the conference here.