Toolkit for Substance Use and Misuse Prevention
This Toolkit has been created for Regional Prevention Centers and community coalitions that are focused on the use and misuse of alcohol, tobacco or other nicotine products, and other drugs. To support prevention professionals and coalitions, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration developed a 5-step planning process, known as the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF)*. These 5 steps offer coalitions a comprehensive approach to understanding and addressing the substance misuse and related behavioral health problems facing their communities.
The Toolkit includes a separate document for each of the five steps and the two cross-cutting principles that are important to each of the steps. They are intentionally brief, with the hope that they can be used within the timeframe of an average coalition meeting. They will not provide the community and population-specific data that is critical to understanding the need (Step 1), nor the particular details of the coalition’s community and organizational capacity (Step 2). Nor will they address the research that will be needed to determine the evidenced-based strategies with the best “fit” for addressing the problem (Step 3). However, they will provide the roadmap and helpful suggestions for the deliberations that will yield a comprehensive approach. Throughout all the steps are the cross-cutting principles of cultural competence, sustainability, and risk and protective factors.
Material within the Toolkit has been drawn extensively from federal agencies and federally funded technical assistance centers. A list of sources is provided for each section.
The five steps and questions they address:
step 1: Needs Assessment
What is the problem? ( the need)
step 4: implementation
How can we put our plan into action? (the work)
step 2: capacity
What do we have to work with? (the people, funding, community resources)
step3: planning
What should we do and how should we do it? (the plan)
step 5: evaluation
Is our plan working? Are we making a difference?
step 1: needs assessment
step 2: capacity
step 3: planning
step 4: implementation
step 5: evaluation
cross-cutting principles
of the Strategic Prevention Framework
risk and protective factors
sustainability
cultural competence
PREVENTION BASICS
*The Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is a community based approach to prevention. www. samhsa.gov