Building Healthy Individuals, Families, and Communities

Today, more than ever before, we have available to us a large body of knowledge about how to reach and influence youth, even high-risk youth and families, that help them build resiliency. Building Healthy Individuals, Families, and Communities describes a program, Creating Lasting Family Connections, which is based on COPES' successful demonstration program, Creating Lasting Connections (CLC). CLC, a research demonstration project, was designed as an ecumenical, community based program that focused on increasing community, family and individual (youth) protective factors that would lead to delaying the onset and reducing the frequency of alcohol and other drug use among at-risk 12-14 year olds. CLC received the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention's Exemplary Prevention Program Award for 1994 and CLFC received this honor in 1999; CLC has been included in the International Youth Foundation's YouthNet International, a directory of the most effective youth programs worldwide; finally, it was selected as one of only seven model prevention programs by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention for national dissemination. While the program focuses on alcohol and other drug-related issues and outcomes, much of this approach is applicable to youth and families across a larger spectrum of issues and behaviors, including violence and inappropriate sexual behavior.