How can I maximize school and community support to help sustain my prevention program activities?

Sustainability is one of many terms used to refer to program continuation beyond the initial funding period. Other terms include: maintenance, incorporation, integration, durability, routinization, and institutionalization. The following definitions of sustainability may provide a context for thinking about this topic:

• The capacity to maintain service coverage at a level that will provide continuing control of a health problem (Claquin, 1989).

• The capacity of a project to continue to deliver its intended benefits over a long period of time (World Bank's definition in Bamberger and Cheema, 1990).

• The ability of a program to deliver an appropriate level of benefits for an extended period of time after major financial, managerial, and technical assistance from an external donor is terminated (U.S. Agency for International Development, 1988).

Planning for sustainability should begin early in your prevention planning process, and should be continued throughout. Consider sustainability when doing the following:

Making school and community connections. The support you need to sustain your program over time is the same support you will need to complete a successful school and community assessment, develop an effective prevention plan, select appropriate prevention strategies and programs, and implement them well.

Selecting programs. Make sure that the science-based strategies and programs you select for your prevention initiative meet identified needs that are supported by your community partners, and are well suited to the resources at your disposal.

Implementing programs. Factors related to successful program implementation can influence sustainability in two ways. First, it is unlikely that an organization that lacks the capacity to implement a prevention program fully will have the capacity to sustain it once the initial funding ends. Second, programs that are poorly implemented are unlikely to produce positive youth outcomes and should therefore not be sustained. Keep in mind, however, that many programs that are poorly implemented have the potential to produce positive outcomes. This is why it is important to maintain prevention activities long enough to refine them, as needed, so that you can assess their true impact. Otherwise, you will never know which components of your prevention initiative to sustain.

There are at least three important and practical reasons to sustain your prevention initiative:

To maximize resources. Launching a program entails significant start-up costs in terms of human, fiscal, and technical resources. Unfortunately, these resources may be wasted if program activities are stopped before they can be fully evaluated. Prevention activities that are sustained over time are more likely to achieve a high level of implementation, providing evaluators with the opportunity to measure their true impact.

To produce long-term effects. It can be counterproductive to end a program that has produced positive outcomes if the problem the program was meant to address still exists or recurs. While many prevention programs are effective in the short-term, studies often report decaying effects in the long-term.

To establish a track record. If a prevention program is successful but not sustained, people will want to know why. Failing to sustain a program that is well supported and effective may compromise your ability to garner support and/or funding for future initiatives.

References

Bamberger, M. & Cheema, S. (1990). Case studies of project sustainability: Implications for policy and operations from Asian experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Center for Mental Health in Schools. (2001). Sustaining school-community partnerships to enhance outcomes for children and youth: A guidebook and tool kit. Los Angeles, CA: Author at UCLA.

Claquin, P. (1989). Sustainability of EPI: Utopia or sine qua non condition of child survival. Arlington, VA: REACH.

Shediac-Rizkallah, M. C. & Bone, L. R. (1998). Planning for sustainability of community-based health programs: Conceptual frameworks and future directions for research, practice and policy. Health Education Research: Theory and Practice, 13(1), 87-108.

Swisher, J. D. (2000). Sustainability of prevention. Addictive Behaviors, 25 (6), 965-973.

U.S. Agency for International Development (1988). Sustainability of development programs: A compendium of donor experience. Washington, DC: USAID.

This material was adapted from an online event at http://www.k12coordinator.org/onlinece/archives/sustaining sponsored by the National Center for Middle School Drug Prevention and School Safety Coordinators, Education Development Center, Inc.

Please contact the Northeast CAPT at capt@edc.org for more information.