Communities That Care

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Communities That Care
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What is Communities That Care? (CTC)

• Operating system that focuses on risk and
  protective factors to provide structure for
  community efforts to address youth issues.
• Addresses
• Substance abuse
• Delinquency
• Teen pregnancy
• School dropout
• Violence

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Community Risk Factors

• Availability of drugs
• Availability of firearms
• Community laws and norms favorable to drug use,
  firearms, and crime
• Media portrayals of violence
• Transitions and mobility
• Low neighborhood attachment and community
  disorganization
• Extreme economic deprivation

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Family Risk Factors

• Family history of problem behavior
• Family management problems
• Family conflict
• Parental attitudes toward, and involvement in,
  substance abuse, crime, and violence

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School Risk Factors

• Early and persistent antisocial behavior
• Academic failure in elementary school
• Lack of commitment to school

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Individual/Peer Risk Factors

• Alienation and rebelliousness
• Friends who engage in problem behaviors
• Early initiation of a problem behavior
• Constitutional factors

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Individual Protective Factors

• Gender
• Resilient temperament
• Positive orientation
• Intelligence

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Positive Factor Bonding

• Parents and families
• Other significant adults
• Teachers, school
• Peer groups
• Organizations
• Community

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How Protective Factors Counter Risk

• Individual characteristics provide a foundation
  for healthy behavior
• To develop or enhance individual characteristics,
  children and adolescents are given a chance to
  contribute to their families, schools, and
  communities. Youth need
• Skills
• The opportunity to contribute
• Recognition for their contribution

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How Protective Factors Counter Risk, cont.

• Contribution leads to bonding
• For a bonded child or adolescent, the provision
  of healthy beliefs and clear standards furnish
  the structure and corrective feedback needed for
  positive development
• Ultimately, this progression leads to healthy
  behavior

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Advantages to the CTC Approach

• Grounded in theory and practice
• Inclusive and participatory
• Takes a community perspective
• Involves training at every step
• Provides a menu of best practices from which to
  choose
• Is adapted to its own needs by each community
• Includes evaluation and adjustment as an integral
  part of any effort
• Seems to work for most problem behaviors

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Disadvantages to the CTC Approach

• Only inclusive and participatory for certain
  people
• Allows the choice of only a finite number of
  approaches
• Choosing from best practices may encourage
  communities to merely follow directions rather
  than throwing heart and soul into the effort
• Narrowly focused
• To a certain extent, based on assumptions
• Has a service to sell

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Who should be involved in CTC?

• People directly affected by the problem behaviors
• People affected indirectly by the problem
  behaviors
• Community leaders and decision-makers
• Those with community interest
• The media

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How do you employ the CTC approach?

• Awareness
• Education
• Community mobilization
• Community assessment
• Prevention plan development
• Program implementation
• Outcomes evaluation

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Community Assessment

• Youth survey
• Census and accompanying GIS data
• Archival records
• Direct contact with youth and other citizens

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Resources to Support the CTC Approach

• Money
• Expertise
• People
• Avenues to reach youth