CE25-029 - Determining Community Readiness to Change Adverse Childhood Experiences and Improve Community-Wide Prevention and Intervention.

About This Grant

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur during childhood that negatively impact individuals throughout their life. Communities play a major role in preventing and intervening in ACEs, yet the role of community readiness to prevent and respond to ACEs is often overlooked - likely because of cumbersome approaches and lack of rigorous guidelines to assess community readiness. Community readiness is the degree to which a community is ready to address a systemic issue in the community, and can be assessed qualitatively using the Community Readiness Model (CRM) and potentially measured quantitatively using the Community Readiness Instrument (CRI). This information can be used by community healthcare providers, leaders, and ACEs advocates to target the community's most salient risk and protective factors and identify novel intervention and prevention efforts. The first purpose of this project is to develop the ACEs-focused CRI, then use the CRI and CRM to determine an urban community's (Charlotte- Mecklenburg County, NC, Char-Meck) readiness to address ACEs. The second purpose is to develop a strategic plan with community partners to formulate action steps that will increase Char-Meck's readiness to change ACEs. The following aims are proposed for this project: 1) Develop a reliable and valid measure to assess community change readiness for ACEs, and 2) distribute the ACEs-focused CRI and CRM results to Char-Meck community partners to develop a strategic plan to increase the community's readiness to change ACEs. To achieve Aim 1, the PI will adhere to the career development objective 1 to acquire advanced methodological training in quantitative instrument development and qualitative CRM assessment. The PI will participate in training to develop quantitative analytic techniques and qualitative interview administration skills. The PI will adapt the existing CRI to the issue of ACEs using the MEASURE Approach, collect data from Char- Meck community members, and determine the reliability and validity of the CRI using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Rasch analysis, and tests of convergent validity. The PI will also use the CRM interview protocols to gather qualitative change readiness data to triangulate with the CRI results. To achieve Aim 2, the PI will adhere to the career development objective 2 to apply community readiness expertise to the area of violence prevention and ACEs. The PI will hold strategic planning meetings with the Char-Meck partners to (a) inform them about the importance of assessing community readiness prior to implementing ACEs efforts, (b) share and explain the CRI results and CRM findings, and (c) engage with the partners to create objectives and action steps that will increase change readiness toward ACEs. These steps may include fostering cross-organization collaboration or the development of new or improvement of existing ACEs prevention and intervention efforts. This project will ultimately determine Char-Meck's readiness to change ACEs and help increase the community's change readiness to prevent and respond to ACEs.