Primary Prevention Programs and Protective Factors

Prevention #1: 
Identify and implement coordinated evidence-based or evidence-informed primary prevention strategies that support community, family, and child well-being.
Identify opportunities to minimize risk factors and enhance protective factors and promote long-term resiliency in children, youth, and adults with a significant emphasis on those having trauma symptoms.

Sponsored by:

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Project Information

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The IBHC Primary Prevention and Protective Factors Implementation Team originally identified 20 action items to address.  These were later consolidated and categorized into the seven action items below.

• Increase community connectedness throughout the state – All team members agree that this is a very important action item, but there are currently no resources dedicated to accomplishing it. During the August 26 implementation team meeting, Cheryl asked about closing the action item.  However, the team wanted to find resources and partnered with the Idaho Community Resource Network to incorporate their objectives into the larger initiative.
  
  
• Increase crime prevention – This team is undertaking priorities from the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections.  Their focus is partner with organizations to provide programs and training that will reduce crime, and follow-up by evaluating the effectiveness of these programs with data.  Their first objective is to partner and support the Idaho Association of School Resource Officers. Rather than undertaking a planned survey to get baseline knowledge about school resource officers (SROs), they were able to take advantage of a recently published report about School Resource Officers in Idaho by the Idaho Statistical Analysis Center.  This team plans to continue supporting this objective by exploring training opportunities at the annual SRO conference and are reviewing a Utah program and statute addressing SROs and school safety.
  
  
• Enhance youth life skills through engaging primary prevention strategies within a positive youth development framework – Former ODP Director and implementation team co-chair Marianne King was the champion of this action item.  After her retirement and subsequent restructure of ODP, this action item is dormant.

• Implement the Idaho Pediatric Psychiatric Access Line (IPPAL) in Idaho – Eric Studebaker and staff at Project Echo drafted a status report identifying feasibility, funding and support for implementing the IPPAL in Idaho.  Idaho is currently the only state that does not take advantage of federal funding to implement this health care service.

• Promote positive childhood experiences and outcomes by increasing access to quality services that address behavioral health and substance use disorders (and other ACEs) – Jane Zink at Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children champions a team for pursuing this action item. Their first objective was to obtain access to the RISE database to establish baseline data. This objective was not accomplished as intended.
  
  
• Strengthen Idaho’s Safe Teen Assessment Centers – The directors of the existing STACs formed a coalition and developed a plan to strengthen and standardize operations to promote sustainability.  They are exploring state funding sources such as the Millennium Fund and the Opioid Settlement Fund to support continued operations.

• Establish standardized data collection tools and a public dashboard to support evidence-based primary prevention strategies and protective factors to promote behavioral health – This team seeks to fill a data gap due to the elimination of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey by focusing our school-age youth. The data they seek to collect will 1) identify trends in youth mental well-being, including risk and protective factors; and 2) determine the effectiveness of prevention strategies and programs. The State Department of Education, with technical assistance from Boise State University, is leading this effort.