PA Communities That Care (CTC) Statewide Evaluation

Start Date: 1998

Funder: Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency

Project Summary

Under a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), the Prevention Research Center is conducting a statewide evaluation of the Communities That Care delinquency prevention initiative. This initiative guides counties through a structured process of risk and needs assessment, and helps them identify and implement research-based intervention to address their identified needs. Communities That Care is in place in 47 counties in Pennsylvania. The evaluation project will examine first-, second-, and third-cycle counties to determine CTC's impact on (1) community planning for youth; (2) child and family outcomes; and (3) the level of institutionalization (how CTC fares after grant funding ends). For more information on Communities That Care, refer to the Developmental Research and Programs' website. For more information on the CTC Evaluation Project, contact Mark Feinberg, Ph.D.

Overview of CTC

Communities That Care (Hawkins & Catalano, 1992 ) is a community-based program that engages community leaders and citizens in a broad-based prevention coalition whose goal is the reduction of adolescent problem behaviors such as violence, drug and alcohol use, teenage pregnancy, school drop-out, and delinquency, and the promotion of positive youth development. Members of the coalition attend intensive trainings to learn how to bring relevant aspects of prevention science, such as risk and protective-factor focused prevention, to the community. The leaders carry out an assessment of risk factors in the community, and based on a prioritization of risk factors formulate and then implement a plan to address those factors. The CTC model focuses on employing evidence-based strategies and programs in a coordinated fashion in order to reduce risk in the community.

CTC in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania initiated a comprehensive plan to implement CTC projects throughout the state in the mid-1990s.  A combination of state funds and federal Title V funds supported projects. The effort has been spearheaded by the Governor's Partnership for Children and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Communities whose applications for the CTC program were successful received a one-year planning grant.  During this planning, key community leaders involved in the effort attended three, multi-day training sessions. The state contracted with Developmental Research and Programs to provide the CTC training. Communities then applied for funding for three-year grants in order to implement empirically supported programs chosen to address the prioritized risk factors in the community.

Evaluation I

The central purpose of our first evaluation was to assess CTC implementation in the first 20 communities (ranging from entire counties to single neighborhoods) that participated in the CTC training process. 

Evaluation II

We followed the first evaluation with several innovations that allowed more efficient and broad-based collection of data on CTC sites. 

Evaluation III

We have begun to analyze statewide data from the Pennsylvania Youth Survey to assess whether CTC has had a population-level impact on youth risk factors and problem behaviors.  PAYS is a survey conducted every two years with a representative sample of school districts, and is conducted with all sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelth graders in those districts.

Investigators

Mark Feinberg
Senior Research Associate
mfeinberg@psu.edu

Mark Greenberg
Edna Peterson Bennett Chair & Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
mxg47@psu.edu

D. Wayne Osgood, Professor of Crime, Law, and Justice, and Sociology

wosgood@psu.edu

Publications

Evaluation 1:

Evaluation 2:

Evaluation 3: