An ISU program designed to reduce substance abuse and behavioral problems in youth is expanding to move nationwide.

PROSPER, which stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience, works to promote healthy habits in youth by partnering with programs that help youth develop in healthy and positive ways.

The program—funded mostly by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health—is more of a partnership support model rather than program.

“We describe it as a delivery system for evidence-based programs,” said Richard Spoth, director of Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State. “It’s actually for individual programs that are family-focused and school-based.”

PROSPER partners with local schools or community programs, which can select evidence-based programs proven to reduce substance abuse and other youth behavior problems among youth while promoting healthy development.

The term “evidence-based” refers to programs that have been proven through scientific research and succeed in achieving desired outcomes. Programs selected by PROSPER must be scientifically proven effective before any connection is made.

Programs linked to PROSPER are typically built around strengthening families or promoting healthy habits in youth. PROSPER supports the programs that have been proven effective, which means better programs get more support, while the developing programs are encouraged to improve.

According to the PROSPER Partnerships website, “The vision of PROSPER is to support community partnerships that sustain the most effective programs for promoting positive youth development and strong families, and to facilitate translation of prevention science into widespread community practice.”

PROSPER is a third-generation model based on past projects focused primarily on strengthening families. First came Project Family, in which ISU Extension agents assisted local schools in hiring staff and program coordinators.

“Because the implementation of the program in collaboration with Cooperative Extension worked so well, we wrote another proposal that was called Capable Families and Youth,” Spoth said. “In that particular project, we had regional level support for smaller local implementation groups.”

The Capable Families and Youth Project, which was the second incarnation of what is now known as PROSPER, introduced local residents to the intervention, but was not as securely structured as the current model. From that evolved the PROSPER Partnerships Model, which implements teams of community volunteers in the process of sustaining evidence-based programs.

“[The Capable Families and Youth Project] is what eventually led to PROSPER, which was approved in 2001,” Spoth said.

The program originated in Iowa and Pennsylvania and was created by the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State in collaboration with the Prevention Research Center at Pennsylvania State University. Now, 24 years of research later, 11 states have been involved with a PROSPER partnership, according to the website.

Michelle Woodruff, a parent representative for PROSPER in Fort Dodge, said she believes PROSPER is making a difference in her community. All four of Woodruff’s children participated in the Strengthening Families Program in sixth grade, which led her to join the local PROSPER team after she was asked.

“We thought it was a great tool for our family,” Woodruff said. “Within our family I think it gave us a nice base for keeping communication open as well as spending one-on-one time with our child [who] was going through the program at the time.”

Woodruff also said she wishes more families would take advantage of these programs, and said she would like to see these kinds of programs expand into other communities.