Key Factor 5: Energy to Mobilize and Sustain Prevention Activities

An assessment of community readiness also can determine the ability of the community to mobilize its members to begin prevention efforts as well as to maintain them over time. Considerations in any readiness assessment include the energy and commitment of initiators in planning and developing the prevention approach and recruiting and retaining the staff, volunteers, and program participants. The time, energy, benefits, and costs of participation all can be assessed.

Prevention efforts that are strongly desired by the community in general, not just the prevention providers and primary stakeholders, are the ones that last. Although the nonprofessional members of the community and parents often need prevention professionals to help them make their dreams a reality, it is the commitment of the community that makes a program endure.

Solutions to drug problems that are imposed on a community by external forces, for example, funders or researchers, are less likely to be maintained once the external force is no longer present. Support from the community is often a stronger indicator of program sustainability than is advocacy of a prevention approach by policymakers.