Since 1994, the Community Prevention Grants Program has helped stimulate significant progress in communities nationwide. In providing communities the tools necessary to develop and implement comprehensive, collaborative prevention efforts to reduce juvenile delinquency and related problem behaviors, OJJDP has helped communities to learn and apply new and more effective methods of creating community change.

Throughout the Community Prevention Grants Program six year history, over 880 communities have brought together police officers, family court judges, and probation officers with teachers, social workers, clergy, child advocates, and parents and youth to empirically assess the needs of youth and families and develop and implement delinquency prevention plans to address these needs. In 1999, we know these efforts are paying off. Nationwide, multidisciplinary community prevention policy boards have stimulated broad-based support for community prevention activities and increased access to resources to help sustain integrated prevention initiatives. Systems change efforts have increased service coordination, enhanced collaboration among service providers, and reduced duplication of effort, resulting in reduced risk and improved opportunities for youth and families. Programs such as mentoring, after-school recreation, and tutoring have provided youth with opportunities to develop skills to succeed in life and avoid involvement in problem behaviors.

Now that many communities have demonstrated successful integration of the key principles of collaborative, community-based prevention planning into local delinquency prevention plans and effective implementation of prevention plans, what are the next steps in community-based delinquency prevention?

The first step is to continue to support communities to refine and monitor the skills necessary to implement collaborative, community-based prevention planning. Although many communities move easily through the four key stages of the Community Prevention Grants Program, other communities struggle. OJJDP continues to offer training and technical assistance to every community that participates in the Community Prevention Grants Program. In addition, through the Community Prevention Grants Program national evaluation, and continued applied research on juvenile delinquency, OJJDP continues to advance understanding of the specific factors that both impede and enhance effective delinquency prevention planning and implementation, and to integrate such findings into ongoing program policies and training efforts.

Second, if communities are to move forward in their prevention efforts—to take the next step in preventing juvenile delinquency—we must support them to integrate all existing community prevention efforts, regardless of funding source, into one comprehensive system of support. In the last 10 years, with the increased emphasis at the Federal and State levels on the development of comprehensive, collaborative prevention strategies, Federal and State agencies have funded a variety of collaborative programs to prevent and reduce delinquency related problems such as substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and school violence. As a result, Title V communities are sometimes implementing numerous prevention initiatives each of which maintains its own prevention policy board, commission, or other planning body; conducts its own community assessment; and chooses and implements its own strategies to meet both identified needs and the funding requirements of each supporting agency—often without knowledge or use of the related work of others in the community. Despite the fact that many of these efforts are producing positive change, the results of years of research and experience continue to point to an integrated approach as the most effective (in terms of both costs and results) in combating juvenile delinquency and other youth problem behavior.

Finally, once communities have successfully integrated their prevention efforts, the next and most important step will be to support communities to integrate all local juvenile delinquency-focused efforts—including prevention, intervention and treatment—into a coordinated, community-based continuum of care that not only prevents the development of and interrupts the progression of delinquency and criminal careers, but also produces more productive and healthy citizens. Through programs such as the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, of which the Community Prevention Grants Program is the prevention component, OJJDP supports and encourages communities to strive toward and achieve this goal.

As the Community Prevention Grants Program moves into its 7^th year, OJJDP will strive to improve coordination and facilitate integration of efforts at the Federal, State and community levels by meeting the following objectives:

• Develop and endorse programs that support communities to eliminate duplicative planning processes. Many juvenile delinquency prevention programs require communities to develop a Prevention Policy Board or community coalition. The Community Prevention Grants Program does not specifically focus on developing new policy boards to meet the program guidelines, but instead encourages communities to utilize existing community boards. To support communities to integrate prevention efforts, OJJDP will continue to encourage and support communities to utilize existing local boards for all community prevention planning.

• Support States and communities to identify ways in which various prevention programs can build on each other. Given that most juvenile delinquency prevention programs are related to families and children—a key to delinquency prevention—many programs share similar goals, objectives and even certain program elements. To facilitate linkages between prevention efforts, both within the agency and in collaboration with its Federal partners, OJJDP will continue to develop and support programs that require stakeholders at the State and community levels to work together to share ideas and information.

• Support States and communities to move beyond prevention strategies toward a comprehensive community-based continuum of services. Through the Community Prevention Grants Program many communities have successfully mobilized individuals and resources to work toward preventing juvenile delinquency and youth problem behaviors. To help communities integrate community prevention, intervention and treatment strategies, OJJDP will encourage States and communities to build on the momentum created by the Community Prevention Grants Program and apply what they have learned through their experience and training to develop a comprehensive, continuum of services.