Ensuring Healthy Development for All Youth: Unleashing Universal, Selective, and Indicated Prevention

Behavioral health problems in childhood and adolescence take a heavy toll on millions of lives. For decades the approach to these problems has been to treat them only after they’ve been identified – at a high and ongoing cost to young people, families, and communities. Now, we have a 30-year body of research and more than 50 programs showing that behavioral health problems can be prevented through universal, selective, and indicated preventive interventions. The challenge now is to mobilize across disciplines and communities to advance prevention practices and policies on a nationwide scale. Two initiatives included in the Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare’s Grand Challenge of Ensure Healthy Development for All Youth are described in this session. The first, Unleashing the Power of Prevention outlines a national prevention agenda developed by the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health. It will be presented by Jeffrey M. Jenson. The coalition’s first effort to unleash the power of prevention by promoting the provision of family focused prevention services through primary health care settings will be discussed by J. David Hawkins. The second initiative Prevention of Schizophrenia and Severe Mental Illness, reviews emerging evidence pertaining to promise of indicated prevention of schizophrenia and will be presented by Jordan DeVylder. The fourth presentation by Valerie Shapiro and Kimberly Bender will focus on preparation of the social work workforce for emerging roles in universal, selective, and indicated prevention.