2016 · Study · English
Adaptation and Implementation of a Science-Based Prevention System in Colombia: Challenges and Achievements
Pérez-Gómez, A., Mejía-Trujillo, J., Brown, E. C., & Eisenberg, N.
Pérez-Gómez, A., Mejía-Trujillo, J., Brown, E. C., & Eisenberg, N. (2016). Adaptation and Implementation of a Science-Based Prevention System in Colombia: Challenges and Achievements. Journal of Community Psychology, 44(4), 538–545. doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21781
Summary
Brief report on the first two years of Comunidades Que se Cuidan (CQC), the Colombian adaptation of Communities That Care implemented by the Colombian government together with the Nuevos Rumbos Corporation. The authors describe the implementation process in eight communities and identify the main challenges and achievements. Preliminary results of the pilot indicate that a prevention system centred on measuring local risk and protective factors could be established in Latin American communities even though few rigorously tested prevention programmes were available for coalitions to choose from. Mobilising coalitions around science-based prevention and their own survey data, the authors argue, can itself stimulate the development and evaluation of prevention programmes in the region. The report is descriptive and offers no outcome data. For European adopters it is an instructive case of transferring CTC to a setting with thin programme infrastructure, a situation many countries new to prevention science share.