This resource outlines key strategies for developing a skilled prevention workforce, emphasizing the importance of clear competencies, structured training pathways, supportive workplace environments, and ongoing professional development to equip practitioners with the knowledge and skills needed to implement evidence-based prevention effectively. It describes practical actions—such as defining role-specific competencies, using competency-based training and coaching, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and building organizational systems that support retention and career advancement—to strengthen workforce capacity and sustainability in prevention practice.
Source: ITB
School Community Readiness
This resource explains community readiness for promoting positive school climate, describing how prepared a school community is to adopt new initiatives, programs, or policies and why assessing readiness matters for successful implementation and sustainability. It outlines the nine levels of readiness and five readiness dimensions (such as leadership support, community climate, knowledge, and resource availability) and provides practical steps and assessment questions to help schools determine their current level of readiness and plan actions to strengthen support before launching change efforts.
School Leaders: The Impact of School Leaders on a Positive School Climate
This resource outlines how school leaders can cultivate a positive school climate and culture by providing transformational leadership, building shared vision and goals, and fostering trust and collective efficacy among staff, students, and families. It highlights practical actions such as forming a school climate team, assessing community needs, selecting and implementing evidence-based supports, setting SMARTIE goals, using data for continuous improvement, and prioritizing responsive professional development to sustain positive environments for learning and well-being.
Special Service Providers: The Impact of Special Service Providers on a Positive School Climate
This resource describes how special service providers (such as counselors, psychologists, and behavioral health specialists) contribute to a positive school climate by offering supports that enhance students’ social-emotional well-being and academic success. It outlines practical roles and strategies—such as using data to identify needs, facilitating evidence-based interventions, collaborating with teachers and families, and supporting inclusive, trauma-responsive practices—that help strengthen students’ sense of safety, connection, and engagement within the school community.
Sustaining Positive School Climate and Culture in Schools and Districts
This resource outlines key strategies for sustaining supportive and inclusive school environments over time by embedding effective practices into school systems, culture, and everyday routines. It emphasizes using data for continuous improvement, aligning policies and procedures with school climate improvement efforts, building leadership capacity, engaging families and community partners, and maintaining shared ownership so that positive conditions for students and staff persist beyond initial implementation.
The PROSPER Delivery System.
This video explains the PROSPER prevention delivery system – a structured, multi-level model that helps communities implement evidence-based youth and family programs with high fidelity, strong participation, and long-term sustainability. Speakers describe how PROSPER combines an Extension-led local team with ongoing technical assistance and state/national support, typically delivering a school-based youth program alongside a family program (e.g., a middle-school family skills series), and note research showing stronger substance-use prevention impacts when programs are delivered through PROSPER rather than “business as usual.” The discussion also highlights practical implementation lessons, including the time and resource investment required, the value of using existing community coalitions to recruit team members, stigma reduction to broaden buy-in, and the benefits of PROSPER’s networked supports for adapting operations during disruptions like COVID while protecting program fidelity.
Community Needs Assessment
This document is a practical guide to conducting a community needs assessment, outlining why such assessments are important, how to systematically collect and analyze data, and how to use findings to inform planning and decision-making. It describes key steps—including defining the purpose, engaging stakeholders, selecting data sources and methods, interpreting results, and communicating findings—to help communities identify priority issues, existing resources, and gaps that can guide effective prevention and development efforts.
Coalitions Part 1: Defining and Forming
This resource explains the foundational steps for building and strengthening community coalitions, beginning with clear definitions of what coalitions are and why they matter for collective action. It outlines how to form a coalition – identifying shared goals, recruiting diverse members, and establishing structures and processes – and highlights early planning tasks that set the stage for effective collaboration and sustained community impact.
Coalitions Part 2: Establishing Effectiveness.
This resource provides guidance on establishing and strengthening coalition effectiveness once a coalition is formed. It outlines practical strategies for setting clear goals, developing shared vision and action plans, defining member roles and responsibilities, establishing decision-making and communication processes, and monitoring progress to support sustained collaboration and measurable community impact.
Fidelity Checklist: Strengthening Families Program 10-14 (SFP 10-14) – Youth Observation Form
This packet contains youth observation forms for the Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10–14 (SFP 10–14), covering its 7-week curriculum. Each form is designed for use during sessions to systematically record whether planned youth activities, facilitator behaviors, and engagement measures occurred as intended, supporting fidelity monitoring and consistent program delivery.