Elsevier

Evaluation and Program Planning

Volume 48, February 2015, Pages 124-131
Evaluation and Program Planning

Evidence-based programs registry: Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.08.004Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

There is a growing demand for evidence-based programs to promote healthy youth development, but this growth has been accompanied by confusion related to varying definitions of evidence-based and mixed messages regarding which programs can claim this designation. The registries that identify evidence-based programs, while intended to help users sift through the findings and claims regarding programs, has oftentimes led to more confusion with their differing standards and program ratings. The advantages of using evidence-based programs and the importance of adopting a high standard of evidence, especially when taking programs to scale,are described. One evidence-based registry is highlighted—Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development hosted at the University of Colorado Boulder.Unlike any previous initiative of its kind, Blueprintsestablished unmatched standards for identifying evidence-based programs and has acted in a way similar to the FDA – evaluating evidence, data and research to determine which programs meet their high standard of proven efficacy.

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Sharon F. Mihalic, M.A. has been a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder for 24 years. She has helped to facilitate multiple facets of work involved in conducting a major longitudinal, national sample to collect data on juvenile delinquency. Research, using this survey, includes articles in the areas of marital violence, drug use, and the effects of adolescent employment on delinquency.

During the last 18 years, her major role at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University has been as the Director of the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development initiative (formerly Blueprints for Violence Prevention). She has examined the evaluations of numerous violence prevention programs and has had major input into the selection of the Blueprints programs. She is a co-author or contributing author on the twelve Blueprints books, as well as the volume editor of each book, and the co-editor of the Blueprints series. She provided the direction and management for two past Blueprints dissemination projects to replicate the Blueprints programs in multiple sites nationwide. She was the PI on a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to replicate and evaluate two of the Blueprints promising programs. She is a Co-PI on a corporate-funded grant that disseminates and conducts process evaluation for the LifeSkills Training program in 15 states. Research from the Blueprints initiative includes seven articles, two bulletins, and a monograph on the factors associated with implementation success. She received the “Science to Practice” Award from the Society for Prevention Research in 2008.

Delbert S. Elliott is the Acting Director of the Program on Problem Behavior and the Founding Director of The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is also a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and currently a Research Professor in IBS. He directed a number of national longitudinal studies and randomized control trials of violence, drug and delinquency prevention programs, including the National Youth Survey, the longest study of antisocial behavior, delinquency, violent behavior and drug use in a representative national panel of adolescents and young adults in the United States.

Del's books include Delinquency and Dropout (1974); The Social Psychology of Runaway (1978); Explaining Delinquency and Drug Use (1985); Multiple Problem Youth: Delinquency, Drugs and Mental Health Problems (1989); Violence in American Schools (1998) and Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods (2006). Del is the founder of the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative and the Senior Editor of Blueprints for Violence Prevention, a series of monographs describing model violence prevention programs.

Del served as Chair of the Criminal and Violent Behavior Review Committee (NIMH) and is a past President and Fellow of the American Society of Criminology and former member of the Advisory Board for the Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control. In 1995 he received the Edwin H. Sutherland Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Criminology from the American Society of Criminology; in 1998 he received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S. Department of Justice). In 2000 he received the Paul Tappan Award for Fundamental Contributions to Knowledge of Youthful Offenders and Domestic Violence by the Western Society of Criminology and the Science to Practice Award from the Society for Prevention Research for outstanding efforts to identify and disseminate empirically supported interventions to prevent crime and delinquency. He was the Senior Science Editor for Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2001. In 2001 he received the Public Health Service Medallion for Distinguished Service awarded by Dr. David Satcher, U.S. Surgeon General. In November of 2003 he received the August Vollmer Award from the American Society of Criminology, in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, and in 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Evidenced Based Practices.

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