What is Prevention?
Garfield County is one of 14 pilot sites for implementation of the Strategic Prevention Framework. The Framework, devised by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and funded through Colorado’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division to Garfield County, is an innovative approach to community-level prevention. In Garfield County, the Garfield Policy Advisory Committee is responsible for choosing substance abuse prevention methods for its application of the Framework. It draws on options provided by SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

How do the strategies work?

In contrast to methods for treating alcohol or drug dependency, which are intended to reduce existing abuse, prevention strategies are delivered to deter abuse before it takes place.

Individual prevention attempts to reduce an individual’s risk for abuse. In a group, classroom, or one-one-one setting, individuals are educated and supported in avoiding those behaviors that could bring on substance abuse for them.

Community-level prevention is a second prevention approach. It uses methods (e.g., public media or changes in enforcement policies and practices) that address all members of a community or one of its subpopulation that is at risk, e.g., all students in a high school or all adult residents of a community college. These strategies aim to change or influence community standards, institutions, structures, and attitudes that shape individuals' behaviors. Necessarily, they must be appropriate to a wide range of individuals in a selected population or sub-population, e.g., females and males and persons of different ethnicities and culture.

What are the methods?

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration supports research on both individual and community prevention and maintains a library at its Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of those methods that are most effective. The Garfield Policy Advisory Committee chooses options for interventions in its two target communities from this library. Methods for Garfield County appear in its strategic plan.