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Prevention Science, Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2004 (°

C 2004)

PROSPER Community–University Partnership Model for

Public Education Systems: Capacity-Building for
Evidence-Based, Competence-Building Prevention

Richard Spoth,1,3 Mark Greenberg,2 Karen Bierman,2 and Cleve Redmond1

This paper presents a model to guide capacity-building in state public education systems for
delivery of evidence-based family and youth interventions—interventions that are designed
to bolster youth competencies, learning, and positive development overall. Central to this
effort is a linking capacity agents framework that builds upon longstanding state public ed-
ucation infrastructures, and a partnership model called PROSPER or PROmoting School–
community–university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience. The paper presents an overview
of the evolving partnership model and summarizes positive results of its implementation over
a 12-year period in an ongoing project.
KEY WORDS: partnership; capacity-building; diffusion; evidence-based intervention; family and youth.

M. Scott Peck opens his Road Less Traveled with
a simple statement: “Life is difficult.” Were he writ-
ing a book on prevention science, he might well have
stated: “Applying prevention science to practice is
quite difficult.” This paper begins with the premise
that there is inadequate infrastructure and capacity
for diffusion of evidence-based prevention programs
and practices; it suggests one approach to a preven-
tion science-to-practice road that could be “more
traveled.” Essentially, it describes a framework for
enhancing the capacity of state and local public edu-
cation systems to support student competence build-
ing, learning, and development through community–
university partnerships. Central to this framework is a
model for linking capacity-related agents within var-
ious segments of state public education systems, in-
cluding state universities and their Extension systems,
1
Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute, Iowa State
University, Ames, Iowa.
2
Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, Pennsylvania.
3
Correspondence should be directed to Richard Spoth, Miller Se-
nior, Prevention Scientist and Director, Partnerships in Preven-
tion Science Institute, Iowa State University, ISU Research Park,
Building 2, Suite 500, 2625 North Loop Drive, Ames, Iowa 50010;
e-mail: rlspoth@iastate.edu.
with the purpose of sustained, quality implementation
of evidence-based interventions for both students and
their families.
THE NEED TO BUILD CAPACITY FOR SUSTAINABLE
INTERVENTION DELIVERY
A number of researchers have lamented the
dearth of literature on effective methods and
supportive infrastructures for sustaining quality im-
plementation of preventive and competence-building
interventions (see Altman, 1995; Elias & Clabby,
1992; Morrisey et al., 1997; Wandersman et al., 1998).
Too frequently, efficacious interventions imple-
mented in schools and communities through grant
funding fail to survive the withdrawal of that funding
(Adelman & Taylor, 2003). A chief reason for the lim-
ited sustainability of interventions begun by research
projects may be that successful implementation of the
project does not necessarily require building the local
ownership and capacity required for the institution-
alization of interventions (e.g., adequate personnel
with appropriate leadership capabilities and other
requisite skills, as well as reliable sources of funding—
see Lerner, 1995; Lerner & Simon, 1998). Even when
evidence-based interventions are introduced into

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32
a school or community independent of a research
project, the community institutions may have diffi-
culty sustaining the interventions (see Biglan, 1995;
Gomez et al., in press; Roussos & Fawcett, 2000).
A key reason for advocating for partnerships
among schools, universities, and communities is that
they can build upon previously developed public ed-
ucation infrastructures for the provision of train-
ing, technical assistance, and other resources used
to enhance capacity for sustained implementation of
evidence-based programs. These infrastructures in-
clude the Extension System based in land-grant uni-
versities and the public school technical assistance
and programming support funded by the U.S. De-
partment of Education. As noted by Huberman and
Miles: “Large-scale, change-bearing innovations lived
or died by the amount and quality of assistance that
their users received once the change process was un-
derway” (1984, p. 273). The partnerships described in
the next section build upon those infrastructures and
incorporate elements of various sustainability strate-
gies recommended in the literature.
FRAMEWORK FOR LINKING CAPACITY AGENTS
IN STATE PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEMS
The need for capacity enhancement directed to-
ward community-based diffusion of evidence-based
interventions is emphasized in relevant literature
(e.g., Arthur et al., in press; Goodman, 2000), par-
ticularly that concerning school-based interventions
(e.g., Gottfredson & Wilson, 2003; Hallfors, 2001).
Herein, capacity-building will be defined as efforts
designed to enhance and coordinate human, tech-
nical, financial, and other organizational resources
directed toward quality implementation of evidence-
based, competence-building interventions through
public education delivery systems. Human resources
include time, knowledge, and skills directed toward
intervention objectives and the provision of skillful
technical assistance. Technical resources include
equipment, access to databases, data management,
and materials required to implement and evaluate
interventions. Other organizational resources include
space and facilities, leadership support, and organi-
zation policy-making efforts that support sustained
intervention implementation.
In his discussions of the roles of organiza-
tional change agents, Rogers (1995) describes a
change agent linking function that entails connecting
Style file version Nov. 04, 2000
Spoth, Greenberg, Bierman, and Redmond
“resource systems” with “clients” of those resource
systems. This linking concept is central to the frame-
work presented herein. Rogers’ linking agent idea is,
however, elaborated. That is, we emphasize the re-
lated, systems-level function of building and sustain-
ing capacity through coordinated efforts of agents
serving different but interrelated roles in public ed-
ucation systems. In other words, we posit an es-
sential function of linking internal capacity-building
and sustaining agents within a public school system
with external agents who share intervention goals
and provide resources to implement and evaluate in-
terventions. External resource agents are those from
agencies “outside” of public schools, both within the
state public education system—the state university,
state department of education, and area education
agencies—and in the local community (e.g., human
service providers). These external agents generate,
coordinate, and provide intervention training, techni-
cal assistance, evaluation, and other resources. Link-
ing to external resource agents facilitates connections
with a continuum of interventions that may benefit
youth and families, ranging from preventive inter-
ventions (e.g., competence building to prevent sub-
stance abuse), to early interventions (i.e., early in
the development of problem behaviors), to treat-
ment for severe or chronic problems (e.g., family
preservation). An internal capacity agent in a pub-
lic school builds, coordinates, and sustains resources
within that organization for the “clients” of evidence-
based interventions—in this case, students in public
schools and their family members—with the idea that
such agents build capacity on an ongoing basis. Such
capacity-building can include generation of resources
necessary to meet accountability requirements (e.g.,
resources for programming designed to reduce bar-
riers to learning that otherwise impede student aca-
demic performance—see Adelman & Taylor, 2003).
See Fig. 1 for a graphic representation of the linking
capacity agents framework.
The linking agents in our framework are from
the state university Extension system (currently
described by the USDA as the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service). This
system provides agents located in communities
throughout every state who can link schools’ internal
capacity-builders and sustainers with their external
resource providers, as a part of their routine work.
These linking agents provide both local or horizontal
linkages (e.g., internal or school-based agents with
external representatives of community agencies)
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Prevention Science [PREV] pp1100-prev-480028 January 29, 2004
Capacity-Building Partnership Model
Fig. 1. PROSPER linking capacity agents framework for evidence-based family and youth competence-building interventions in state public
education systems.
and vertical linkages (e.g., school-based agents with
regional or state-level technical assistants). Both
types of linkages can facilitate the continuum of
interventions described earlier, including these that
address special needs. The next section on state pub-
lic education system partnerships will describe the
Extension System and linking agents’ roles in more
detail, in the context of our PROSPER partnership
model (PROmoting School-community-university
Partnerships to Enhance Resilience).
PROSPER CAPACITY-ENHANCING
PARTNERSHIP MODEL
As conceptualized in this paper, a PROSPER
partnership in a given state is initiated through the
land grant university, with efforts to identify ap-
propriate state-level partners (e.g., Department of
Education—DE), along with community partners.
The mission of the partnership is to foster im-
plementation of evidence-based youth and family
competence-building interventions, with ongoing lo-
cal needs assessments, monitoring of implementation
quality and partnership functioning, as well as evalu-
ation of intervention outcomes. Figure 1 outlines the
organizational structure of these partnerships.
Partners
Three basic source organizations and agencies
represent the partners involved in the PROSPER
model: (a) land-grant university Extension System
and personnel (e.g., family and youth program content
specialists and directors, county agents) and preven-
0:15 Style file version Nov. 04, 2000
33
tion researchers involved in program development
and evaluation; (b) elementary and secondary school
system personnel (e.g., school-based preventive inter-
vention coordinators, school counselors, curriculum
directors, teachers, principals) supported by regional
or state coordinators for the Safe and Drug-Free
Schools program, as well as other DE-supported
technical assistance centers; and (c) community
providers of prevention, family, and youth services,
as well as other community stakeholders (e.g., rep-
resentatives of the juvenile court system, students,
parents).
Partner Roles at Three Levels of Team Functioning
These partnering organizations and personnel
operate at three different levels within a state:
(a) school/local community-level strategic teams in-
cluding local internal, external, and linking agents;
(b) intermediate-level coordinating teams of linking
agents and other regional-level technical assistants;
and (c) state-level teams consisting of external re-
source agents.
School/Local Community Strategic Teams
The school/local community strategic teams rep-
resent the level at which the work gets done; these
teams are directly responsible for prevention pro-
gram selection, implementation, supervision and, ul-
timately, sustainability. Extension System personnel
servicing communities through county-based offices
have key roles as leaders and facilitators of these local
teams. Approximately two-thirds of Extension staff
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34
are county-level agents, most of whom hold master’s
degrees and are a valuable source of education and
support (Halpert & Sharp, 1991; Molgaard, 1997).
These local Extension personnel play critical roles
in constituting local teams; they link school-based
capacity-building and sustaining agents (e.g., curricula
directors, intervention coordinators, and other imple-
menters) with community service providers, and other
local stakeholders.
One or two school district staff who function as
internal capacity agents and primary school represen-
tatives work collaboratively with Extension personnel
as coleaders of these local teams. Various school dis-
trict personnel (district superintendents, school prin-
cipals, curriculum directors, health educators, other
school teaching staff) perform supportive roles and
represent an important constituency which must be
satisfied with local team decision-making and pro-
gram selection (given that the school represents the
locus of program implementation). Hence, the school
representative who is serving as local team co-leader
provides the critical interface between local team de-
cisions and school engagement and support.
Local community service providers and other
stakeholders round out the local team. As frequently
noted in the literature, a range of community stake-
holders should be involved in community-based
intervention implementation, evaluation, and refine-
ment if the intervention is to be successfully sustained
in the community (e.g., Altman, 1995; Elias, 1992;
Morrisey et al., 1997; Wandersman et al., 1998).
The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development
(1995) has encouraged innovative community part-
nerships to address youth problems, and there are
now many publications providing specific guidelines
for the successful development of community part-
nerships (see Arthur & Blitz, 2000; Lasker, 1997;
Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). On the local teams co-led
by Extension agents and school personnel, a range of
other local groups contribute valuable resources to
team efforts aimed at prevention program selection
and implementation, including locally-funded family
and youth service agencies, community mental
health centers, and those represented in interagency
coalitions. Frequently, agency staff are involved in the
provision of school-based services and are already
accustomed to working with the school system and
serving as effective service referral resources. To-
gether they address the special needs of families and
youth that extend beyond what can be adequately
addressed by typical family- and school-based inter-
ventions through referrals to agencies and programs
Spoth, Greenberg, Bierman, and Redmond
for families with special needs. Parent and youth
representatives complete the local team.
Intermediate-Level Coordination Teams
and State-Level Teams
PROSPER partnerships include two levels of
external resources and support for local teams. The
function of the linking (intermediate level) and
state level teams is to provide local teams with the
information and technical assistance they need to im-
plement evidence-based prevention programs. There
are incentives for local schools and communities
to do so. For example, the DE Safe and Drug-Free
Schools program (SDFS) is currently fostering the
implementation of evidence-based prevention pro-
grams following a set of “principles of effectiveness.”
Schools receiving funding through SDFS are required
to use evidence-based programs and, to that end,
the SDFS program has the potential to strengthen
the motivation for schools to collaborate with local
prevention practitioners and program developers,
evaluators, or both. For this collaboration to work,
however, linkage mechanisms are critical. Two on-
going studies of partnerships (Arthur & Blitz, 2000;
Feinberg et al., 2002), have demonstrated that the lack
of funding and support for linkages to infrastructures
that provide ongoing technical assistance threaten
the implementation of evidence-based programs.
As depicted in Fig. 2, the state-level team
involves prevention scientists, university-based Ex-
tension specialists, and other state-level collaborators
from the education system who can assist with local
adoption of evidence-based competence-building
programs, and with ongoing technical assistance
and evaluation. This university-based team also
enhances capacity by providing support to the
intermediate-level coordinating team (described
below), administrative oversight and direction, input
on local data collection (including needs assessments,
program evaluations), data analyses, and compilation
of project reports and publications.
An intermediate-level coordinating team is led
by an Extension prevention coordinator, preferably
along with an area education agency (or department
of education) technical assistant person at the inter-
mediate level. As mentioned earlier, the persons in
these positions function as liaisons between the state-
level prevention team and the local school/community
strategic teams. These coordinators provide technical
assistance and administrative oversight for the local
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Capacity-Building Partnership Model
Fig. 2. PROSPER organizational structure for state public education partnerships.
PROSPER teams. Notably, they place an emphasis on
proactive technical assistance (see Mihalic et al., 2002),
entailing frequent (i.e., weekly) contacts with local
team members to provide ongoing assistance and ac-
tively engage in collaborative problem solving, as in-
dicated. They attend local team meetings, facilitate
overall partnership functioning, and document the on-
going partnership process, maintaining communica-
tions with the state-level DE/SDFS coordinators and
keeping local teams informed of state-level activities.
Barriers and Benefits
Community-based prevention approaches im-
plemented through locally driven coalitions and
partnerships have become increasingly popular in
recent years (Butterfoss et al., 1993; Connell et al.,
1995; Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). These approaches
were originally guided by an agent/host/environment
public health model designed to address cardiovascu-
lar disease prevention (e.g., Puska et al., 1983); they
0:15 Style file version Nov. 04, 2000
35
have now been extended to other health problems
as diverse as cancer, HIV infection, lead poisoning,
low birth weight, and injury, as well as behavioral
health problems such as violence, substance abuse,
and teenage pregnancy (Mayer et al., 1998).
Local coalitions are not always effective at
implementing evidence-based prevention with high
fidelity; coalitions can become diffuse in focus,
develop consensual adaptations of programs in ways
that reduce intensity or otherwise threaten fidelity,
and may not be sustainable themselves (Hallfors
et al., 2002). The PROSPER model is designed to
address these potential barriers to effective function-
ing. Although somewhat similar to other innovative
models focused on youth development (e.g., Benson
et al., 1998; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), such as
“Communities That Care” (Arthur & Blitz, 2000), the
PROSPER model has a more narrow and strategic
focus on educational infrastructures and intervention
delivery systems. Local teams select locally optimal
programming from a menu of empirically sup-
ported programs, and focus on local adaptations in
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36
presentation, recruitment, and staffing, while drawing
on the resources of the intermediate and state-level
teams to access the training and technical assistance
that allow them to implement their selected programs
with fidelity. As such, these teams are intended to have
local leadership representing educational program
delivery organizations and a limited set of interven-
tion goals; they are less “comprehensive” in these
ways than are broader, more comprehensive commu-
nity initiatives (Connell et al., 1995). Nonetheless, they
include key representatives of school and community
stakeholders who wish to foster capable families and
positive youth development. The partnership model
includes a central role for the land-grant universities
and the utilization of the broad Extension system
that is intimately connected with these universities in
a way that fosters access to and high fidelity imple-
mentation of evidence-based prevention programs
The local teams also are specifically designed to
link schools with community service agencies in a way
that supports schools as the locus for universal family-
focused and youth-focused prevention efforts. To mo-
tivate schools to use local partners, the strategic local
teams are engaged in tasks oriented toward a carefully
selected set of family and youth competency-building
intervention goals, ones that are focused on support-
ing student learning and development. The first team
task is to select and implement a family-focused pre-
vention program, which relates to the schools’ goal of
increasing positive parental involvement and support,
and encourages reliance on community agencies for
program leaders and staff with expertise in parent-
and family-focused programming. Placing Extension
staff in the position of co-leading of local teams may
be a particularly important feature of team design.
These agents typically are well-established and well-
networked with youth- and family-serving agencies in
communities, have prior working relationships with
both local schools and other service agencies, and are
thus in a natural and legitimate position for bringing
these various team members together.
The goal of sustaining partnerships is fostered by
the fact that the lead public education organizations
involved in these partnerships already have estab-
lished state- and national-level infrastructures; they
represent potential for a national network of state
public education system partnerships and long-term
sustainability. In addition, sustainability is discussed
from the beginning of team efforts. Over time, teams
are encouraged to expand in a strategic fashion, invit-
ing members that may foster long-term community
ownership and sustainability (see Backer, 2000). For
Spoth, Greenberg, Bierman, and Redmond
example, in addition to social and health service
providers, it can be helpful to involve a range of other
potential stakeholders in programs for families and
youth, particularly those that can positively influence
sustained program implementation, such as represen-
tatives from faith-based institutions. Parent groups,
businesses, law enforcement, or the media also can be
helpful. It is imperative that organizations represent-
ing diverse racial or ethnic populations be involved
whenever they are present in the community served
by the partnership (see Carnegie Council on Adoles-
cent Development, 1995).
There is an important need to critically evalu-
ate existing public education delivery systems and
infrastructures that can support the particular type
of community-based approach articulated in this
paper—one that entails families and schools collab-
orating with community stakeholders, as well as uni-
versity outreach and research personnel. There also
is a need to examine how networks of such part-
nerships can serve to effectively enhance capacity-
enhancement for diffusion of evidence-based inter-
ventions. Past research suggests the PROSPER model
can be effective, and a randomized trial of the PROS-
PER model is currently underway to further evalu-
ate the feasibility, functioning, and sustainability of
the model across multiple communities. Early evi-
dence from the current trial suggests that the multi-
level team framework can be effective in integrating
science with practice. For example, findings from re-
search on program recruitment and participation con-
ducted by state-level team researchers was utilized
by local teams implementing evidence-based family-
focused programs, through ongoing technical assis-
tance provided by intermediate-level team Extension
prevention coordinators.
ILLUSTRATIVE PROJECT AND DEMONSTRATED
MODEL RESULTS
The potential of capacity-enhancing partner-
ships among prevention researchers, Extension sys-
tem personnel, public school staff, and community-
based stakeholders has been demonstrated over
the past 12 years through a large-scale youth
and family competence-building project known as
Project Family. Earlier reports (Spoth, 1999; Spoth
& Molgaard, 1999) describe the rationale for a fo-
cus on partnership-based youth and family com-
petence building, along with positive youth devel-
opment outcomes. The reports summarize positive
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Capacity-Building Partnership Model
outcomes of the partnerships corresponding to the
dual goals of action research (see Small, 1995).
That is, positive outcomes have included contribu-
tions to competence-building practices, including fam-
ily engagement strategies, needs assessments, and
family and youth program policy. Youth outcomes
and other findings have been summarized by Spoth
and Redmond (2002). Notably, universal, family-
focused interventions implemented through the part-
nerships have shown positive outcomes on parent-
ing (through a 1 year follow-up) and on a range of
substance- and conduct-related youth behaviors, at
follow-ups 4 and 6 years past baseline (e.g., Spoth
et al., 2000, 2001). Benefit-cost ratios were favorable
(see Spoth et al., 2002). Partnership-related benefits
also have entailed contributions to practice-oriented
research, including four research models concern-
ing factors in intervention adoption/participation,
implementation-outcome relationships, outcome me-
diators and moderators, and sustained partnership
processes. These models are designed to guide inter-
vention refinement and improved methodology for
studying general population interventions (A sum-
mary of related project studies and manuscripts is
available at www.projectfamily.isbr.iastate.edu).
There are clear indicators of the benefits of
the state partnership approach to the quality im-
plementation of evidence-based programs. Over the
course of a number of partnership-based projects
conducted during the past 12 years, 618 public schools
have been involved in various aspects of the Project
Family program of research; 106 public schools
have been recruited and retained for randomized,
controlled intervention trials. The average school
recruitment rate for these trials is approximately
90%. Within these school districts, the percentage of
youth participating in school-based interventions has
been in the mid 90s; general population recruitment
percentages for family-focused intervention projects
have ranged from the mid 50s to the mid 60s. Rates of
attending families that are represented in more than
half of the intervention sessions typically have been
90% or greater. Further, recent reports demonstrate
quality implementation of evidence-based programs
through the partnerships, with high adherence rates
(averaging 85% or greater for both family-focused
and school-based programs); project reports de-
scribe how partnerships contribute to high-quality
implementation (e.g., Spoth et al., 2002). In addition,
partnerships have been central to securing substan-
tial funding for program evaluation projects (see
www.projectfamily.isbr.iastate.edu).
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37
Essential to the continued Project Family
development of effective state public education part-
nerships is an improved understanding of partnership
functioning and how such functioning affects inter-
vention implementation and outcomes across phases
of partnership functioning. Indeed, most of the
research literature on partnerships has been prescrip-
tive, descriptive, or both—rather than analytic. It has
been labeled a “wisdom” literature, one that is anec-
dotal and on the basis of experiences and impressions
of participants and outside observers (McLeroy et al.,
1994). To contribute to the knowledge base in this do-
main, a randomized, controlled effectiveness trial is
being conducted to evaluate PROSPER in Iowa and
Pennsylvania; it is guided by a heuristic partnership
process-to-outcome model that will be refined as re-
search progresses. This study is evaluating outcomes
achieved through local team preventive interven-
tion implementation and, in addition, is examining
intervention, partnership, school, and community
characteristics that may affect partnership-based
intervention implementation outcomes.
CONCLUDING COMMENT
The proposed PROSPER partnership model
builds upon an impressive body of literature and ex-
isting conceptual frameworks for community-based
partnerships addressing risk reduction, competence-
building, and positive youth development. Notably,
it attempts to provide a well-defined framework for
the delivery of evidence-based family and youth
competence-building interventions via mechanisms
grounded in state educational organizations that are
oriented toward science-guided practice. In addition,
it addresses the vexing issue of capacity enhancement
for the sustained implementation of evidence-based
interventions by creating a collaboration between two
well-established intervention delivery systems with
a broad reach to American communities (namely,
public schools and the Extension system). We await
the results of the current trial to document successful
sustainability of the current operationalization of the
partnership model, but believe the potential for sus-
tainability has been maximized. Assuring realization
of this potential has been accomplished by embed-
ding diffusion efforts within existing service-delivery
infrastructures, focusing on developing local team
expertise and ownership, and providing teams with
technical assistance in understanding and working
toward sustainability as early as the first year of team
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38
formation (C.f., Adelman & Taylor, 2003; Adelman
& Taylor, in press; Zins et al., 2003).
An emphasis on capacity enhancement within
longstanding state public education infrastructures
for diffusion of evidence-based youth and family in-
terventions is a logical starting point for an effort to
build capacity for sustainable intervention delivery—
an effort with the ultimate purpose of increasing the
prevalence of competent and adaptive youth and fam-
ilies in this country. It could be a road more traveled.
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