Promotion/Prevention
Promotion/prevention programs are proactive and evidence-based/evidence-informed, striving to reduce individual, family, and environmental risk factors; increase resiliency; enhance protective factors; and achieve individual and comprehensive community wellness through a team or collaborative approach. Promotion/prevention programs utilize strategies designed to keep individuals, families, groups, and communities healthy and free from the problems related to alcohol or other drug use; mental health disorders; physical illness; parent/child conflict; abuse/neglect; and exposure to and experience of violence in the home and community, and to inform the general public of problems associated with those issues, thereby raising awareness; or to intervene with at-risk or identified individuals to reduce or eliminate identified concerns. Programs may be provided in the community, school, home, workplace, or other settings. Programs that offer training to current or future child/youth personnel are also included.
Organizations may provide one or more of the following types of promotion/prevention programs, categorized according to the population for which they are designed:
- Universal (Promotion) programs target the general population and seek to increase overall well-being and reduce the overall prevalence of unwanted or problem behaviors. These programs include comprehensive, well-coordinated components for individuals, families, schools, communities, and organizations. They promote positive behavior and include social marketing and other public information efforts.
- Selected (Prevention) programs target groups that are exposed to factors that place them at a greater than average risk for the problem. These programs are tailored to reduce identified risk factors and strengthen protective factors.
Examples of prevention programs include pregnancy prevention, drop-out prevention, strengthening families, substance abuse prevention, violence prevention, HIV prevention, smoking prevention, child abuse prevention, and suicide prevention.
- Training programs provide curriculum-based instruction to active or future personnel in child and youth service programs.
Examples of training programs include caseworker training, child welfare supervisory training, foster parent training, leadership training, guardian/guardian ad-litem training, and childcare assistant training.