Factors That Facilitate and Impede Community Planning To Address Drug and Alcohol Issues: Lessons Learned From the Fighting Back Evaluation

• NCJ Number: 158396
• Author(s): M Klitzner; K Stewart
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, CA, November 20-23, 1991

Annotation

This report discusses preliminary results from the evaluation of 15 communities that implemented the Fighting Back Initiative, a program designed to support intensive community-wide activities to reduce the demand for illegal drugs and alcohol.

Abstract

Approximately 30 individuals per site were interviewed, including Fighting Back staff, members of Fighting Back planning bodies, individuals invited to participate in Fighting Back who declined, community officials, and community-wide informants. The Fighting Back Initiative has been successful in generating a great deal of activity based on relatively small grants, in stimulating interagency cooperation, in recruiting high quality staff and volunteers, and in raising optimism regarding the change of positive change at these sites. Three related social context issues that emerged from the site evaluations related to community ownership of the problem, inclusion/exclusion of ethnic groups, and identifiable leadership of ethnic groups. Two key variables related to the scope of the alcohol and drug problem which are discussed here include the priority giving to the problem in each community, and community perceptions of the problem.