Elsevier

Evaluation and Program Planning

Volume 54, February 2016, Pages 19-29
Evaluation and Program Planning

The power of a collaborative relationship between technical assistance providers and community prevention teams: A correlational and longitudinal study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2015.10.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examine the relationship between technical assistance providers and community prevention team leaders.

  • Higher levels of a collaborative relationship relate to better internal team functioning.

  • This pattern is found in longitudinal analysis.

Abstract

Background

Historically, effectiveness of community collaborative prevention efforts has been mixed. Consequently, research has been undertaken to better understand the factors that support their effectiveness; theory and some related empirical research suggests that the provision of technical assistance is one important supporting factor. The current study examines one aspect of technical assistance that may be important in supporting coalition effectiveness, the collaborative relationship between the technical assistance provider and site lead implementer.

Methods

Four and one-half years of data were collected from technical assistance providers and prevention team members from the 14 community prevention teams involved in the PROSPER project.

Results

Spearman correlation analyses with longitudinal data show that the levels of the collaborative relationship during one phase of collaborative team functioning associated with characteristics of internal team functioning in future phases.

Conclusions

Results suggest that community collaborative prevention work should consider the collaborative nature of the technical assistance provider – prevention community team relationship when designing and conducting technical assistance activities, and it may be important to continually assess these dynamics to support high quality implementation.

Section snippets

Background

There has been increasing use of community collaborations and teams as organizing units to implement prevention programs and advocate for change in policies related to the prevention of health risk behaviors over the last 20 years (Butterfoss et al., 1996, Chinman et al., 2004, Greenberg and Feinberg, 2002, Hallfors et al., 2002, Hawkins et al., 2008). Indeed, federal dollars to implement prevention programming or to work for changes in policies (e.g., Weed and Seed and Drug Free Communities)

Defining technical assistance

Technical assistance (TA), or the support and assistance that a prevention effort receives from someone or some organization that is not a part of a community team, has been theorized as very important in supporting high quality implementation of prevention programs specifically, and prevention systems more generally (Chinman et al., 2005, Forman et al., 2009, Mitchell et al., 2002, Wandersman and Florin, 2003, Wolff, 2001). A TA provider typically has specialized knowledge, experience, and

Effects of technical assistance

There is relatively strong evidence that implementation of prevention programs is of higher quality when supported by TA (Catalano et al., 2004, Durlak and DuPre, 2008, Fixsen et al., 2005, Kelly et al., 2000, Olson, 2010, Rabin et al., 2010, Spoth et al., 2013). Preliminary research on the effectiveness of TA systems has focused largely on the degree to which such support affects both the quality of program implementation and overall program effectiveness. Results of such studies have

Method

The 14 communities involved in the current study were the intervention communities that were randomly selected from a pool of 28 potential communities to participate in the PROSPER project in Pennsylvania and Iowa (Spoth et al., 2004). Eligible communities had: (a) total school district enrollment between 1301 and 5200 students located in a non-metropolitan area; (b) a minimum of 15% of students eligible for free and/or reduced lunches; (c) less than 50% of the population employed by or

Preliminary analyses

Descriptive statistics of all measures are listed in Table 2. There is some fluctuation of reported TA Collaboration over time, with lower averages appearing during the implementation phase compared to the organizational and planning stage. The communities involved in the study have a relatively low percentage of families that are living below the federal poverty threshold. Overall, levels of internal team functioning are quite positive over time, but they seem to drop slightly across the 4.5

Discussion

This study examined the relationship between TA provision and the community prevention team, focusing on its impact on the quality of the team functioning. Specifically, we examined the contribution of the collaborative relationship between TA provision and the community prevention team in predicting high-quality team functioning, an important proximal outcome that predicts later success (Feinberg et al., 2008a, Greenberg et al., 2014, Perkins et al., 2011, Spoth et al., 2005). The findings of

Conclusion

This study showed that the quality of the relationship between the lead implementer and TA provider is quite important for prevention teams to achieve proximal outcomes that are indicators of effectiveness. Specifically, a relationship characteristic of collaboration between the TA provider and lead implementer was supportive of high-quality internal team functioning. Future research should continue investigating these relationships. Future community collaborative prevention work also should

Acknowledgements

Work on this paper was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA013709) and co-funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA14702) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (DP 002279).

Sarah M. Chilenski is a Research Associate at the Prevention Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University. Her primary interest is examining how communities, schools, and universities can collaborate in the pursuit of quality youth prevention and health promotion programming. To this end, her focus includes researching the association of community characteristics with adolescent outcomes, the predictors and processes of community prevention team functioning and prevention systems. She

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    Sarah M. Chilenski is a Research Associate at the Prevention Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University. Her primary interest is examining how communities, schools, and universities can collaborate in the pursuit of quality youth prevention and health promotion programming. To this end, her focus includes researching the association of community characteristics with adolescent outcomes, the predictors and processes of community prevention team functioning and prevention systems. She frequently employs multiple methods in her research.

    Daniel F. Perkins is Professor of Family and Youth Resiliency and Policy at the Pennsylvania State University and is Director of Penn State Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness. Currently, Dr. Perkins is examining the transitioning of evidence-based programs and practices to their large scale expansion into real-world settings. The Clearinghouse is an applied research center with a mission of fostering and supporting interdisciplinary applied research and evaluation, translational and implementation science, and outreach efforts that advances the health and well-being of Military service members and their families.

    Jonathan R. Olson is on the faculty at The Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on predictors of internalizing and externalizing outcomes among young people, positive youth development, and prevention programming for youth and families.

    Lesa Hoffman is the Scientific Director of the Research Design and Analysis (RDA) Unit of the Lifespan Institute and Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods in the Child Language Doctoral Program. Her program of research seeks to empirically examine and to thoughtfully disseminate how developments in quantitative psychology can best be utilized to advance empirical work in psychology, human development, and other social sciences.

    Mark Feinberg is Research Professor at the Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at Penn State. He has two main areas of research, including community prevention systems and family prevention. His current methodological interests focus on how interventions work with multiple family members in the context of prevention trials. He is the PI on the NIH-funded Military Family Foundations project.

    Mark Greenberg is the Bennett Chair of Prevention Research, and Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Penn State. His research interests include intervening in the developmental processes in risk and non-risk populations with a specific emphasis on aggression, violence, and externalizing disorders; promoting healthy social and emotional development through school-based prevention; the study of community partnerships and the diffusion of evidence-based programs; and the study of contemplative practices and mindfulness interventions.

    Janet Welsh is Research Assistant Professor at the Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at Penn State. Her research interests primarily involve development, implementation, and evaluation of school based prevention programs for children and youth. She is involved in a number of school readiness initiatives for young children, including Head Start REDI and the Focus on Learning project.

    Max Crowley is a decision scientist and health policy researcher studying how to effectively and efficiently protect children and prevent risky health behaviors. His work seeks to design community prevention efforts that strategically invest in youth to reduce risky health behaviors as well as the future burden on social service systems. This includes developing performance-based financing strategies to ensure high-quality program delivery.

    Richard Spoth is the F. Wendell Miller Senior Prevention Scientist and the Director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State University. He provides oversight for an interrelated set of projects addressing a range of research questions on prevention program engagement, program effectiveness, culturally-competent programming, and dissemination of evidence-based programs through community–university partnerships. Among his NIH-funded projects, Dr. Spoth has received multiple awards for his work from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and The Society for Prevention Research.

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