STRATEGIC PREVENTION FRAMEWORK
Thrive Coalition is guided by the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) developed by the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Agency (SAMHSA). SPF helps communities effectively address substance abuse
and mental health issues through the following five steps:
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Step 1. Assessment: Discovering what our community needs
Step 2. Capacity Building: Find out what our community needs to address identified problems
Step 3. Planning: Develop a detailed plan that links desired outcomes to identified needs.
Step 4. Implementation: Put our plan into action by delivering evidence-based interventions, as intended.
Step 5. Evaluation: Assess the effectiveness of our prevention efforts.
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Throughout these steps, the SPF is guided by the following principles:
Cultural Competence: The ability of to interact effectively with members of diverse population groups
Sustainability: Building an adaptive and effective system that achieves and maintains desired long-term results
The SPF is a community-level, data-driven process that guides prevention practitioners
through the steps needed to successfully explore and address substance abuse problems in
context. The following are key characteristics of the SPF:
• A dynamic and iterative process: For example, assessment is the starting point, but our coalition will return to this step again and again as our community’s prevention needs and capacity evolve. Communities may also engage in activities related to multiple steps simultaneously. For example, our coalition may need to find and mobilize additional capacity to support implementation once an intervention is underway. For these reasons, the SPF is a circular—rather than a linear—model.
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• A data-driven model: The SPF is designed to help our coalition gather and use data to guide all prevention decisions—from identifying which substance use problems to address in our community, to choosing the most appropriate ways to address these problems, to determining whether communities are making progress in meeting their prevention needs.
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• A team approach: Each step of the SPF requires—and greatly benefits from—the participation of diverse community partners. The individuals and institutions on board will change as the initiative evolves over time, but the need for prevention partners will remain constant.