SHIFTING THE FOCUS: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO ADVANCING VIOLENCE PREVENTION

Common Prevention Principles

These Common Prevention Principles were developed as a set of standards to guide prevention efforts. Prevention practitioners know that effective prevention requires a framework that promotes strategic collaboration, non-categorical approaches, and adequate funding and timeframes. Furthermore, ongoing efforts can be strengthened through utilizing appropriate evaluation. In order to assure that prevention efforts are successful, a coherent structure to achieve the intended outcomes is needed. These Common Prevention Principles are grounded in that understanding. They can be applied in a wide range of areas, including violence prevention, youth development, community development, early childhood development, and other related fields.

Prevention Principles:

1. Advance a comprehensive approach.

1.1. Encourage use of comprehensive approaches as opposed to narrower approaches.

1.2. Foster the development of healthy children, youth, families, and communities.

2. Shift toward a strengths-based approach.

2.1. Encourage asset- or strengths-based strategies for use in primary prevention and intervention strategies.

2.2. Acknowledge and address underlying risk factors.

3. Support appropriate evaluation.

3.1. Promote a tiered evaluation system that requires rigorous evaluation of untested strategies and evaluation for financial accountability, implementation and management for programs shown by research to be effective.

3.2. Use consistent and promising evaluation tools and measures.

3.3. Include outcome/results measures.

3.4. Support pilot programs only if they have adequate resources for evaluation.

3.5. Support programs with adequate resources for management evaluation.

3.6. Include financial assessments where appropriate, including social return on investments (SROI) and cost avoidance measures (prevention may cost now but will save dollars later).

3.7. Assess effectiveness of State programs through positive local response and the achievement of results.

3.8. Ensure that evaluation is used as a tool for continuous quality improvement of programs.

4. Funding should be designed to achieve desired outcomes.

4.1. Support longer funding terms (5+ yrs).

4.2. Support consolidation, and when appropriate, integration of funding streams.

4.3. Encourage one-time funding for immediate needs only, not for prevention and intervention programs or pilots.

4.4. Support expansion of promising or research-based effective approaches.

4.5. Provide adequate levels of ongoing support for effective programs.

4.6. Eliminate ongoing programs that are ineffective or are too small to offset administrative costs.

4.7. Support funding for program sites to act as mentors or models.

4.8. Encourage flexible funding whenever possible.

4.9. Encourage reinvestment of savings from prevention into additional resources for prevention.

4.10. Direct some resources to all communities and additional resources to communities with the greatest needs.

5. Strengthen and empower community-based initiatives.

5.1. Encourage local partnerships without specifying local partners.

5.2. Support use of existing collaboratives.

5.3. Acknowledge and build on local capacity.

5.4. Promote training and skill development.

5.5. Allow local flexibility on service delivery.

5.6. Encourage initiatives to examine local policy issues to increase support for prevention.

6. Support strategic partnerships among State agencies and departments.

6.1. Encourage state-level coordination and, where appropriate, integration.

6.2. Support integration of programs designed to achieve similar ends.

6.3. Designate appropriate partnerships among State agencies and departments for all new prevention legislation, funding, and programs.

6.4. Build on existing programs that can be expanded or modified to meet objectives as opposed to starting new ones.

6.5. Recognize that many prevention approaches (e.g. youth development) have positive impacts across risk areas (e.g. drug use, violence, etc.)

6.6. Work to consolidate categorical programs, when appropriate.

6.7. Design funding sources to be compatible with funding from other departments and agencies whenever possible.

These Common Prevention Principles were created by Shifting the Focus. Shifting the Focus is a voluntary interagency violence prevention partnership. Leaders from over 30 departments in California's state government agencies, as well as representatives from local violence prevention agencies, state commissions, and state organizations, recognize that effective violence prevention requires a new way of doing business. The members of Shifting the Focus are committed to reengineering State government away from isolated efforts to a broader service orientation. The underlying assumption is that better service delivery by the State will support prevention practitioners to address local problems, resulting in healthier, safer, and more sustainable communities. The partnership acknowledges that improved government practice requires the mobilization of a broad array of activities, staff, and resources across departments.

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Putting Prevention at the Center of Community Well Being
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