Prevention is the sum of individual and group efforts to ensure healthy, safe, and productive lives for all in the community. As applied to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, prevention means keeping the many problems related to the misuse and abuse of these substances from occurring. Because of the far-reaching effects substance abuse has on the community, it is often the community that takes responsibility for substance abuse prevention.

Community Involvement in Prevention
While the energy for prevention activities is frequently community-based, these groups are often not aware of the practices that have been shown to prevent the misuse and abuse of substances. They may be reluctant to take a more active role because they lack the information and resources they need to organize prevention services for their community. Sometimes, community groups who try to provide prevention programs operate from wrong or outdated notions or use trendy practices that are not proven to work. Conversely, innovative programs are frequently not implemented because community organizations are unaware of the supportive research which justifies their use.

Connecting the Community to the Best Practices
To put the community energy for prevention activities to its best use, community organizations need to be aware of and guided in the use of the best practices in prevention. Congregations, civic groups, senior centers, youth programs, recreational groups, job search support programs, health clubs, and many others can easily be connected to substance abuse prevention specialists who can introduce state-of-the-art substance abuse education, prevention, and early intervention programming. In addition, the professionals can teach the members of the community-based organizations how to provide education, prevention, and early intervention services to other people in their community. In 2000, the Foundation opened the doors to the Assistance for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) Center dedicated to developing non-traditional sources of substance abuse activities.

Improving Community-Based Prevention Activities
The ASAP Center will provide the technical assistance and funding necessary to help community organizations:

• Increase their substance abuse prevention and early intervention efforts
• Base these efforts on evidence-based best practices
• Acquire supporting materials such as booklets, pamphlets, and videos
• Evaluate the effectiveness of their prevention program
• Collaborate and coordinate efforts with other community groups and service providers