Arriving early for her Friday morning planning team meeting, Patty reviewed the materials she'd finished drafting the night before. She looked forward to sharing them with her colleagues. Together, the documents presented a clear summary of the steps they'd taken so far to identify a research-based program for their school. Through a careful process of elimination, they had narrowed down the field to those programs that might be appropriate. Now they could begin exploring the feasibility of implementing any particular one.

Over the next 15 minutes, members of the Prevention Planning Team filtered in. After some brief updates, the group turned their attention to the meeting agenda. Patty summarized the meeting that she, Janice, and Eric had attended with the School Improvement Team earlier in the week, then distributed her drafted set of materials. The group quickly reviewed the Plan/Strategy/Program diagram. "This is great," one member piped up. "It's a clear way of highlighting the fact that 'program' does not equal 'strategy.' That's a hard distinction to get across!"

Patty then walked the group through her "system" for narrowing the universe of potential programs. As she spoke, she referred the group to the one-page document she'd developed (see below).

"Of course," Patty concluded, "finding the information we needed wasn't always easy. I found most of what we wanted online (click here for some of the links Patty used to collect information), but I also made a few trips to the library to hunt down some original research articles. And once or twice I had to contact a program developer to find out what we wanted to know. Any questions so far?"

As members shook their heads, Patty moved on to the matrix, designed to match programs and strategies. "As you can see," Patty explained, "programs use a variety of strategies to produce intended outcomes. The purpose of this matrix is to help us -- as well as the School Improvement Team -- readily identify those programs that use the strategies we think will work best in our schools.

"The matrix is limited to the 17 school-based programs mentioned above: those with a classroom component that have been shown to be effective with a general population of middle school students. Of these programs, six of the programs incorporate at least two of the prevention strategies we're interested in. My suggestion is that these are the programs we should investigate further."

The group pored over the matrix until Janice exclaimed, "This is really useful, but it just occurred to me that we haven't considered cost. Aren't some of these programs very expensive?" Patty knew that this was the perfect time to raise the issue of feasibility.

"You're right," Patty agreed. "Cost is an issue. And there may be other practical issues that could affect our school's readiness or ability to implement a particular program." Heading toward the blackboard, Patty grabbed a piece of chalk and suggested that the group spend some time brainstorming a list of these factors.

Initial discussion focused on the availability of resources, such as money for program materials and training, and the availability of space. Yet, as the conversation gathered momentum, several less-tangible -- but equally important -- issues emerged. These issues were related to the overall political climate of the school and community, and their readiness to take on a new prevention program.

Several members of the Prevention Planning Team voiced their concerns. Tom, the father of a seventh grader, was concerned that parents might object to a drug prevention program that discussed "hard drugs," such as heroin and cocaine. "A lot of parents around here don't want to admit that their kids use drugs.

Hearing about hard drugs might be too much for them. However," he continued, "they might not mind a program that focused primarily on smoking, drinking, and maybe marijuana. Maybe we could start there, and then address other types of substances next year."

Janice shared another concern: "While many of the more comprehensive programs on the list look great, I'm afraid that parents and teachers will be reluctant to take on another schoolwide program. We are, after all, in the midst of adopting a schoolwide education reform plan. Since the reform plan is likely to address classroom restructuring and policy development, why don't we focus our attention on identifying a classroom-based program that emphasizes parent involvement and skills promotion? There must be several that could be successfully infused into the curriculum!"

Patty supported this suggestion, reminding the group that the administrators and teachers had only recently agreed to give up the current classroom-based prevention program: "We can start small, and then expand our program or add a second component next year. Also, we'll want to make sure that any new strategies or programs we select will strengthen prevention activities and policies already in place at the school."

Patty looked at the chalkboard and reviewed the feasibility issues that the group considered important. Today's discussion had been helpful; as a result of their brainstorming, they would eliminate from consideration any drug prevention programs that included discussions of hard drugs, as well as any comprehensive, schoolwide programs. Instead, they would look at classroom-based programs that focused primarily on "gateway drugs" and/or bullying prevention. Yet that still left four programs that could, potentially, work in their school.

Glancing at her watch, Patty was surprised to see that the meeting was about to end. She quickly volunteered to develop a Feasibility Checklist comprised of the issues raised. She could use it to help the administrators and teachers on the School Improvement Team hone their thinking about program selection. It would be interesting to see their reactions to the list; she suspected that they would identify many issues that had been overlooked by today's group.

Patty had no doubt that her next meeting with the School Improvement Team would be challenging; there would be a lot of material to cover, and it would be up to her to keep the discussion on track. Still, she was proud of the progress the Planning Team had made and looked forward to sharing the fruits of their labor. The program selection process they had developed was both sound and grounded in research. From these strong beginnings, she felt confident that their prevention initiative would be a success!

Please think about these questions and post your answers to the Discussion Area.

1. Though a variety of feasibility variables will be factored into your decision to select a prevention program, not all of these variables will carry the same weight.

   Which variables will carry the most weight in your school or district? Why?

   Can you imagine a situation where faculty and administrators assign different weights to the same variable? What might you do in this situation?

2. Finding information about programs of interest can sometimes be challenging. What strategies have you used to track down important information, particularly as it relates to program implementation?