Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Through implementation of DARE to be YOU (DTBY), we aim to serve American Indian and Latine families of youth grades 3-5. As a universal program, DTBY targets all families, not only those "at-risk," and supports both parents and youth. Also, our Extension-focused prevention training and technical assistance (T/TA) will support Extension Specialists as local prevention providers. This T/TA will increase their knowledge, skills and capacity along the process of prevention, which includes building community readiness, assessing community needs, selecting evidence-based programs (EBPs), implementing EBPs and adapting when needed, evaluating prevention efforts, and sustaining EBPs. Through this training, we aim to increase high-quality, impactful prevention activities for Colorado communities by way of Extension. Changes/Problems:Due to family and teacher recruitment challenges, we requested a project change to Dr. Edwin Lewis, which was approved 10/2/24. Originally, our grant proposed implementing the DARE to be YOU-Bridge Program (DTBY-BP) for grades 3-5, their parents, and their teachers and serving primarily tribal and Latine communities. ?After adapting the curriculum, the DTBY project team worked tirelessly alongside our DTBY Advisory Board to recruit for the program. Like a lot of family programs nationally in this post-COVID era, the local DTBY team is finding family recruitment to be a challenge. Additionally, due to major school administration challenges in local schools, the DTBY team is also finding recruitment of teachers to be near impossible (an essential part of the Bridge Program to facilitate school connectedness). Like many teachers nationwide, those in the Four Corners region of Colorado have very low capacity. In addition, local area schools have struggled to retain teachers, which has led to long-standing teacher vacancies and current teachers facing extreme burnout. Teachers participating in a program like DTBY-BP on top of their current duties was seemingly not feasible.Our proposed and approved change was to implement the original DTBY program (without teachers) in addition to the DTBY-BP. This change will expand our team's ability to serve local families with a proven family program that's been implemented locally in the past, while still investing in the new DTBY-BP iteration.Additionally, the DTBY and CSU PRC have identified several other strategies for increasing family recruitment. These include training more facilitators across the SW region to expand implementations, investigating a virtual implementation option for the program, and building up social media recruitment strategies. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? DTBY-BP facilitator training - teen helpers, March 2024, 5 teens Forum 2023 - 10 Extension Specialists, September 2023 Preparing for launch of online Extension training series (estimated 7-9 courses), first course and in-person workshop expected to be released Fall 2024 How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results from our pre-grant needs assessment were shared with participants (about 50 Extension Specialists) at the "Extension Connect" presentation/discussion and were used to guide further conversation on training needs. Results from the "Extension Connect" presentation/discussion were shared with folks from the Extension Input session (approximately 10 Extension Specialists) and were used to guide further conversation on training needs. Our team plans to share all feedback results to attendees at the Colorado Extension Forum 2024 conference workshop event, led by our CSU PRC team. The DTBY team updated our DTBY Advisory Board regularly on DTBY program recruitment and implementation progress and worked alongside this team to try new strategies to increase recruitment. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This year, our team plans to continue to support the DTBY Team as they implement both DTBY-BP and DTBY. Our team will provide coaching through regular meetings, continue to convene the DTBY Advisory Board, support the DTBY team as they investigate virtual option by connecting them with another family-based program that navigated this process previously, and assist in crafting new recruitment materials and strategies. Additionally, our team will continue to build the Extension training series. We will start by launching the first course in our training series at the Colorado Extension Forum 2024 in September and then releasing the course electronically later in the Fall. After, we will continue to work on courses and content along the process of prevention.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Implementation of DARE to be YOU-Bridge Program (DTBY-BP) Year 1 primarily served as a planning and pilot year for the DTBY program. In the first quarter, our CSU team and our subaward team (henceforth referred to as "DTBY team") identified and invited 7 members from the local Four Corners community who represented or worked alongside tribal and Latine communities. In year 1, 3 advisory board meetings were hosted, where the group shared updates around the DTBY-BP program, discussed family and teacher recruitment strategies, shared contacts and ideas for initiating new program cohorts in the region, and brainstormed sustainable ways to provide funding for meals and incentives outside of the RHSE funding. This group has identified many connections within the region necessary to elevate the DTBY program locally and establish a solid base for the Bridge Program. Additionally, our CSU team met the DTBY team 5 times to discuss recruitment challenges, training and technical assistance needs, evaluation items, recruitment ideas, local connections, and more. The CSU team sent resources around data collection to local contacts such as CTC and Opioid Settlement Fund representatives to help with recruiting and sustaining the program, tools for tracking outreach, incentive plans for teacher participation in the program, and more. Our teams maintained regular email contact with each other and worked diligently to support the local effort. The first year of DTBY-BP program implementation focused planning, adapting for grades 3-5, and piloting the 1st draft adaptation. While beginning conversations with local partners about this new grant-funded project, the DTBY-BP concurrently worked on adapting the DTBY-BP program, which involved 11 sessions (2 hours/session) of the adult curriculum, 11 sessions (2 hours/session) of the youth curriculum, and 11 parent/teacher/youth activities. The first cohort that piloted the newly adapted curriculum was conducted at Battlerock School, a charter school that has students from NA and Latine populations and an active PT organization. Three in-person planning meetings were held before beginning implementation. Families were recruited at the Battlerock Halloween Family Festival and winter school open house, where the team spoke with 20+ families and 7 families signed up to participate. However, due to administrative challenges (e.g., delays in IRB approval), there were delays for beginning the program that resulted in lost momentum. The DTBY Team tried to add another school to the pilot (Kiva Charter School, primarily students from Ute tribe) and worked extensively with the school and partner organization (Moguan Behavioral Health Organization) to recruit families and overcome implementation barriers. Unfortunately, low family involvement and conflicting youth activities and schedules did not allow for Kiva's participation in the cohort. The pilot continued with Battlerock, worked with two families (3 parents, 1 teacher, 2 youth) and was well received. To scale-up their implementation efforts, the DTBY team trained 5 teen facilitators in March 2024, and plans to train more adult and teen facilitators early in year 2. For the next cohorts, the DTBY team is investigating partnerships with schools serving Southern Ute students in Ignacio, schools serving Ute Mountain Ute students in Towaoc, public schools in Cortez, and a local department of social services. Additionally, they are interested in offering DTBY-BP training in Shiprock to expand DTBY-BP implementations across the region. Colorado Extension Training & Technical Assistance For our deliverable on building prevention science Extension trainings, we launched our project at the CSU Annual Extension Forum (September 2023) by presenting an introduction to prevention and this project to 10 attendees. Then, we spent the remainder of this grant year focused on collecting more feedback, networking, and planning with Colorado Extension Specialists. Our pre-grant application needs assessment provided responses from 41 Extension personnel statewide and showed that 85% were moderately or very interested in learning about prevention science and related knowledge and skills.After initial conversations and meetings with Extension administrators, we decided to do additional outreach directly with Extension Specialists and partner closely with main-campus personnel within Health Extension to execute this deliverable. In January 2024, we presented at an "Extension Connect" session and hosted a discussion with approximately 50 Extension Specialists to learn more about their prevention-related training and technical assistance needs. During this session, we learned Extension Specialists were interested in program evaluation, prioritizing needs and their work, collaborating across counties, and a basic understanding of prevention programs. Further, in April 2024, we hosted an Input Session with 10 Extension Specialists from a variety of focus areas and levels of tenure in Extension. This session helped our CSU PRC team establish a baseline of Extension's programming efforts and knowledge around programs, program development, selection, implementation, adaptation, evaluation, and sustainability. Following this event, we determined the need for an introductory course covering (1) what are prevention programs, and (2) how prevention programs change behavior. Also, we identified that Extension professionals were interested in trainings throughout the process of prevention from building capacity and readiness to selecting evidence-based programs, implementing programs with fidelity, program adaptation, logic models, evaluation, and sustainability. Based on these data, our team established a plan for an Extension prevention science online training series that will cover each of these topics. To support this work, our research-to-practice team, collaborative Extension workgroup, and project team met nearly 30 times to plan our training series and work on content for future courses. Additionally, our team was awarded an Extension-funded summer intern. During Summer 2024, we worked alongside a graduate student intern and partnered with three Extension Specialists to develop the first course in our training series. The outline, script, knowledge checks, and activities will be used at our Extension Forum (annual Colorado Extension conference) workshop as a launch to our training series. We will then release the online version of the course and participants from the workshop will assist in disseminating the training.

Publications