Strategic Planning and
Assessment
OVW Campus Program
TTI #2
Module 3 (Day 3 1 hour)
Module 3:
Adaptation of Programs and Strategies
• Guiding questions
– How do we keep from reinventing the wheel?
– How do we use evidence informed practices but
make sure they meet the needs of each unique
campus?
– How can lessons learned from implementation
science be helpful?
– What to do if there is no evidence based program
or training that makes sense for your campus?
Campus Conversations:
Discussion and Resource Sharing
• Where have you been able to locate helpful
research related to response and prevention
projects in your strategic plan? Where are
their gaps?
Choosing Strategies that are right for
you
• Review your goals and objectives: logic model
• Review needs assessment data including
formative evaluation work on programs/trainings
you are already doing
• Locate programs/trainings/materials that are
evidence based
• Analyze components
• Assess Fit
• Balance of adaptation and fidelity
Evidence?
• Continuum of evidence discussed in TTI #1
from CDC and from notalone.gov website
strategic planning document.
• Evidence that informs
– Content of the materials
– Pedagogy
– Implementation on campus
Determining Fit
– Conceptual fit: An intervention has good conceptual fit if it
directly addresses one or more of the priority factors
driving a specific problem and has been shown to produce
positive outcomes for members of the target population.
To determine the conceptual fit, ask, “Will this
intervention have an impact on at least one of our
community’s priority risk and protective factors?”
– Practical fit: An intervention has good practical fit if it is
culturally relevant for the target population, the
community has capacity to support it, and if it enhances or
reinforces existing prevention activities. To determine the
practical fit of an intervention, ask, “Is this intervention
appropriate for our community?”
Adapted from SAMHSA substance abuse prevention materials
Selecting materials to use
• Questions to ask:
– What is the evidence that this material/program works?
– What restrictions on content or implementation do you
face (policies or norms about what is allowable or
acceptable)?
– What staff resources are required by the program and
what resources do you have?
– What time is required by audience and does that match
what is available?
– What are the core objectives of the program and how does
that match your outcome goals?
– What is the theoretical model behind the program? Does it
fit with the mission of your work?
Fidelity
To what extent do you implement a program in the same
way as that program was developed?
Are you replicating what the creators of the program
did?
How true are you staying to core components of the
program or strategy so that the active ingredients in what
makes it work are retained.
– 3 types of core components:
» content; pedagogy; implementation
(ACT for Youth
http://www.actforyouth.net/sexual_health/community/evidence.cf
m)
Adaptation
Making changes so that the program or strategy resonates better
with the local community context.
Can include
adding,
deleting,
substituting material;
changing how the strategy is taught or implemented
Key question: Are changes that are needed more surface or core
elements of the training/program/material?
https://captus.samhsa.gov/prevention-practice/strategicprevention-framework/implement/1
General Guidelines for Program Adaptation
• Select programs with the best initial fit to local
needs and conditions
• Select programs with the largest effect size
• Change capacity before changing the program
• Consult experts
• Retain core components
• Be consistent with evidence-based principles
• Add rather than subtract
• Effective cultural adaptation
http://www.samhsa.gov/capt/applying-strategic-preventionframework/step4-implement
Planned Adaptation
• 3 categories
(1) encouraged
(2) should be done with caution and consultation
(3) discouraged.
Firpo-Trickett & Fuller (2012) General adaptation guidance: A guide to
adapting evidence-based sexual health curricula.
http://www.actforyouth.net/sexual_health/community/evidence.cfm
Encouraged
Considered
• Customize statistics
•
• Customize role play
scenarios to reflect local
context
•
• Make activities
interactive by adding
elements
•
•
• Tailor instruction to
developmental stage,
•
gender, sexual
orientation, culture – ex.
Language
• Use local examples and
data
Reordering activities or
sessions or presentation
of information
Adding activities to
increase dose but can
also make programs too
long.
Adding activities to
address additional
risk/protective factors
Deleting or replacing
specific activities (using a
video instead of activity)
Implement with different
population or setting (ex.
Taking a single gender
program and delivering to
mixed gender audience
or doing 2 sessions of
prevention together)
Discouraged
• Making a program
shorter
• Taking out skills
practice or interactive
exercises
• Focusing only on
awareness raising and
removing other
elements
• Putting pieces of
different programs
together
Adapted from ERT and CDC model for prevention adaptation:
Examples
• Know Your Power® social marketing campaign
– Built on key research about mobilizing bystander action and
modeling prosocial norms.
– Research on social self-identification in prevention materials
– Process for adapting to each campus including structured focus
groups.
• Core components retained: types of scenarios, depicting positive
bystander action; providing resources on the poster; implementation
– saturate a campus.
• Adaptations: language, location, what students are wearing, language
students use in the scenario; Implementation – choice of products for
logo.
Potter, S. J. & Stapleton, J. G. (2011). Bringing in the target audience in
bystander social marketing materials for communities: Suggestions for
practitioners. Violence Against Women, 17, 797-812.
What if materials don’t exist?
• Innovate based on what we know works or
doesn’t.
– Go back to the developer of the program or training.
Have they adapted it for different populations or
campuses?
– Talk to other campuses including other grantees in
your cohort – what are they using?
– Use theory and more basic research on the problem
to inform what you think will work. This will help you
build a logic model for why you are doing what you
are doing! You may need to go back to more basic
research.
Implementation Science
• What factors support or challenge use of empirically
supported strategies in communities and their
sustainability
– Factors that promote success: active administrative support;
ongoing training (building advocates and diffusion of
innovations); integration of program into already existing
structures in the school. (Dalton, Elias & Wandersman (2007)
Community Psychology 2nd Edition, Thomson Publishers, Ch.
11).
– Research suggests that these characteristics are supported by:
high motivation/readiness of community; resources to do the
work; demonstrating benefit of the work (impact assessment).
– Using Technical Assistance when it is available!!!!
Discussion Exercise
• Divide up by cohort and area of work
– Prevention folks, law enforcement, conduct
– Divide further into groups of no more than 4
people
• Each person gets 2 minutes to share a
promising practice they are considering and to
explain the logic model behind it: WHY will it
work on your campus? What evidence do you
have? What adaptations will you consider?