Embedding Prevention Science into Social Work Research and Practice: Micro, Macro and Policy Level Changes to Support Healthy Youth Relationships

Within the field of youth development, one area that has received increasing attention over the past decade is the promotion of healthy relationship skills amongst adolescents (i.e., skills that promote non-violent, respectful and trusting relationships). These skills are a key social-emotional learning competency, and also provide a foundation for healthy, non-violent relationships throughout the life course. They are also an important component of primary prevention strategies for adolescent dating violence. However, while a number of evidence-based programs exist that promote healthy youth relationships using both universal and targeted approaches, the wide-scale, high-quality implementation of these programs remains elusive.

Indeed, to bring effective prevention and intervention programs to scale, attention needs to be paid to how programs will be disseminated, implemented and sustained in order to achieve social change. Without this careful planning at all levels (micro, macro and policy), strategies are unlikely to achieve broad support and may fail. This level of planning for program scale-up is described within the field of prevention science, but the application of these ideas in practice is still limited. Further, much of the work on bringing programs to scale has not been within social work, and thus lacks focus on change beyond the micro level.

This roundtable session will describe the application of theories and knowledge from the field of prevention science within a social work framework, including how understandings of prevention science can be used to support change at the micro, macro and policy levels. Presenters will pay particular attention to how social workers can use knowledge from the field of prevention science to guide their theory and practice, as well as how to create systems-level change to support healthy youth relationships. Presenters will draw on their work over the past five years implementing the province-wide scale-up of programs, policies and practices to support the development of healthy youth relationships in Alberta, Canada. For example, the first presenter will discuss how to advocate for and create policy change that supports healthy youth relationships at a provincial level, by using theories and practices from both prevention science and social work. The second presenter will discuss how to use frameworks from the sub-field of implementation science to support the sustainable scaling of youth programs within macro-level systems (e.g., schools, communities). The third presenter will discuss how to create change in micro-level practice among practitioners who work with youth, both through community-based training and the implementation of focused curriculum within post-secondary settings.

This roundtable will add to the current knowledge base in social work theory and practice by taking an inter-disciplinary perspective, and highlighting how theories of youth development, prevention science and social work can be combined to shape large-scale social change for youth. Given the promise of social work to advance prevention and intervention strategies that will improve the well-being of adolescents, this roundtable will provide timely information on strategies that social work researchers and practitioners can use to inform the sustainable scale-up of policies and practices that will promote positive youth development.