The prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders among children and adolescents is a national priority. One mode of implementing community-wide MEB prevention efforts is through evidence-based community mobilization approaches such as Communities That Care (CTC). This article provides an overview of the CTC framework and discusses the adaptation process of CTC to prevent development of MEBs through preventing child abuse and neglect and bolstering child well-being in children aged 0 to 10. Adaptations include those to the intervention itself as well as those to the evaluation approach. Preliminary findings from the Keeping Families Together pilot study of this evolving approach suggest that the implementation was manageable for sites, and community board functioning and community adoption of a science-based approach to prevention in pilot sites looks promising. Implications and next steps are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record

Objective: Communities That Care (CTC) is an evidence-based community mobilization model designed to prevent problematic adolescent behaviors such as delinquency and substance use by organizing community coalitions that choose and implement evidence-based practices to address community-specific risk and protective factors. This paper presents findings from the evaluation of Keeping Families Together (KFT), an adapted CTC approach that uses the community mobilization model to target community-wide prevention of child maltreatment in families with children aged 0 to 10, 3.5 years into implementation. Method: The findings from the 2 communities implementing the adapted KFT approach are compared with those from 12 communities that implemented the traditional CTC model as part of a site-randomized controlled trial. Data collected approximately 3.5 years into each approach's implementation are analyzed to determine whether this adapted approach has resulted in similar implementation quality as well as satisfactory board functioning and community transformation (key indicators of successful CTC implementation and predictors of outcome achievement that have been identified in previous CTC studies) as original CTC. In addition, we assess whether perceived program sustainability is similar between adapted and traditional CTC sites at similar time points. Results: Statistical testing revealed that, at 3.5 years into implementation, board functioning, communities' adoption of a science-based approach to prevention, and sustainability in the adapted KFT approach were equal or superior to traditional CTC sites. Conclusions: As an adaptation of the evidence-based CTC community mobilization approach, KFT offers the potential of a promising extension of CTC to the prevention of child maltreatment.

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