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Over the last decade, federal and state agencies
have increasingly required county and community-level
initiatives to implement research-based
prevention programs that seek to reduce alcohol/drug
problems, to eliminate tobacco use, and to prevent
crime. Simultaneously research and demonstration
efforts have expanded to apply environmental approaches
to prevent these problems at the community level
using local regulation, environmental design,
media advocacy, facility management, and organizational
policy-change approaches.
Prevention by Design has also grown over the
last seven years. As part of a state-funded project
from 1999 through 2006 to help California county
alcohol/drug agencies adopt outcome-based prevention
planning methods, Prevention by Design has developed
a community-level planning approach, Taking Charge,
that ties together outcome-based planning with
community environment prevention planning. Prevention
by Design is a project of the Community Prevention
Planning Program at the Institute
for the Study of Social Change at the University
of California, Berkeley. Program staff have backgrounds
in county and community planning, community data
and related information services, urban geography,
social work, public health prevention planning
(emphasis on alcohol/drug and mental health services),
architectural programming and environmental design.
They are led by the Community Prevention Planning
Program's founder and Program Director, Friedner
D. Wittman, Ph.D., a researcher, policy advisor,
and practitioner who has been active in community
planning, environmental design, and alcohol/drug
prevention for 35 years.
Prevention by Design emphasizes practical assistance
to help local agencies and organizations use their
current resources to achieve effective, efficient
outcomes. Our Taking Charge planning process is
as dedicated to building on existing strengths
in the community as it is to devising exciting
new solutions to intractable, long-standing problems.
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