The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #61913

Rachel Davis, MSW¹, Karabi Acharya, ScD¹, Toni Gantz, BS¹, Ken Feske², and David Summers³. (1) Prevention Institute, 265 29th Street, Oakland, CA 94611, 510-444-7738, rachel@preventioninstitute.org, (2) Prgram Director Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative Salinas, CA, 546 Lincoln Ave, Salinas, CA 93901, (3) Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative Salinas, CA, 546 Lincoln Avenue, Salinas, CA 93901

Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) is a federally funded initiative coordinated by the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services. The initiative aims to promote healthy childhood development, prevent drug and alcohol abuse, and reduce violence in schools by supporting a range of coordinated school-based services and programs.

Salinas is a moderately sized city in northern California with a murder rate comparable to Los Angeles’s; much of the city’s violence and crime is linked to youth gang activity. One of approximately 100 SS/HS sites nationwide, Salinas received $8.1 million over three years to support the work of 14 providers, including school districts and city, county, and community agencies, which together provide services to over 10,000 students and their family members. Along with implementing a broad range of programs, such as gang intervention, mental health, parent education, and substance abuse prevention, all agencies were expected to collaborate and coordinate with one another. This collaboration would ideally allow a common vision and synergy of efforts that would result in a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The evaluators collected data to examine the effectiveness of the Salinas SS/HS collaborative, paying particular attention to primary prevention activities. Qualitative research methods were used to develop case studies of schools and families, reviews of three primary prevention programs, and an assessment of partners’ collaboration with one another. The presenters will share the evaluation findings, which fall into several themes: primary prevention, effective collaboration, safe school environment, importance of leadership, and policy.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Understand the role of primary prevention activities within the SS/HS initiative.
• 2. Describe some of the lessons learned from implementing an integrated program to prevent school violence.
• 3. Describe the benefits and challenges related to broad-scale collaboration between city, county, and government agencies and school districts.
• 4. Understand how providing coordinated school-based services impacts perceptions of safety in schools.
• 5. Describe the successes and challenges faced by the leadership of the local initiative in changing systems and processes within community institutions.
• 6. Identify the local policy recommendations and barriers that emerged as a result of the Salinas SS/HS initiative.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.