Fundamental to our population-based prevention research has been a strong collaborative partnership with the local agencies such as the Baltimore City Public Schools and the Baltimore City Head Start Centers. Our preventive interventions focus both on changing the outcomes for children and families, and on experimental tests of developmental models. Prevention trials can provide us with a powerful means of addressing questions about development, etiology, vulnerability, and contextual influences within defined community populations, across different social fields and life stages. At the first level, universal interventions are applied to all children. At the second level, selected interventions back up the universals for those children who require more help.
Indicated interventions are at the third level and back up the first two levels.
The first or universal level addresses the socialization structure and processes such as classroom, family, and peer group. The selected level is intimately related to the first level and might be considered that part of the socialization universal level that allows flexible responses to variation in the children, or individuals if we can generalize to other stages of life. The second level may entail somewhat more specialized professional care. In addition, our trials may include a treatment component for children not responding to the preventive interventions. Our goal is to continue to build a comprehensive framework of developmentally-based prevention of heavy drug use and conduct disorder, depressive symptoms and disorder.