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Selecting Programs to Meet Your Specific Needs
National best practice list can be an extremely useful source of
information concerning prevention programs that have been scientifically
shown to be effective. But the simple fact that a program appears on one
of these lists doesn't mean the program will meet the needs of any
particular school. It's important to carefully consider local needs
when selecting a program.
The first steps is to conduct a needs and resource assessment to help
you to understand the nature of the concerns you are trying to address
and what resources already exist within your community. For
more information about conducting a needs assessment, read the free
document "Planning for Results: The Safe and Drug-Free Schools
and Communities Program Planning and Evaluation Handbook,"
produced by the Virginia Department
of Education. (This documents requires the
free Adobe Acrobat reader.)
In addition to considering the prevention level of the program
(universal, selective, or indicated), other important aspects to
consider are grade level of the students you intend to reach and
the content focus or specific issues you plan to address.
Grade Level
A program that has been successfully implemented at one grade level
may not be appropriate or effective when used with student of a different
age. Look carefully at the suggested grade level for each program and
consider how well this matches the age and developmental level of your
students. Also, some best practice programs have only been shown to be
effective with certain age levels of students. Check the age level at
which the program has been evaluated before making a final decision to implement.
Content Focus
Consider carefully what specific content areas or issues you intend
to address by implementing any program you are considering. A program
designed to improve climate and discipline in the classroom may or may
not be appropriate to address bullying issues in the playground. A peer
mediation program may help solve immediate disputes between students but
by itself may not help the general student population develop problem-solving
and social skills needed to prevent unnecessary conflicts from arising in
the future.
This completes the guided tour of key concepts in school-based youth
violence prevention.
As you begin to conduct your needs assessment, use this site to identify
and explore programs that address your goals and circumstances. Features of
this site enable you to easily browse best practice programs, search for
programs that meet your criteria, learn about specific best practice lists
and the programs that appear on them, read more detailed information about
specific programs, save programs that interest you to a personal program list,
request that program distributors send you information packets about their
programs, and learn which programs are reported as being currently used in
Virginia schools.
Thank you for your interest in bringing the best possible youth violence
prevention programs to students in your community.
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