Assessing an adapted approach to communities that care for child maltreatment prevention

Abstract

Objective: Communities That Care (CTC) is an evidence-based community mobilization model designed to prevent problematic adolescent behaviors such as delinquency and substance use by organizing community coalitions that choose and implement evidence-based practices to address community-specific risk and protective factors. This paper presents findings from the evaluation of Keeping Families Together (KFT)—an adapted CTC approach that targets community-wide prevention of child maltreatment in families with children ages 0–10. Method: We compared findings from 2 Oregon communities that implemented KFT with those from 12 communities that implemented traditional CTC as part of a site-randomized controlled trial. We analyzed data collected approximately 3.5 years into implementation to determine whether this adapted approach resulted in similar implementation quality, board functioning, community transformation, and perceived program sustainability as original CTC. Results: Board functioning, communities’ adoption of a science-based approach to prevention, and sustainability in the adapted KFT approach were equal or superior to traditional CTC sites 3.5 years into implementation. Conclusions: As an adaptation of the evidence-based CTC community mobilization approach, KFT offers the potential of a promising extension of CTC for prevention of child maltreatment.