Alameda County has a long-standing history of providing prevention services across sectors and to serving those that are disproportionality impacted by the child welfare and juvenile justice system. Alameda County has selected Motivational Interviewing as a cross-cutting approach as the primary evidence-based practice to improve engagement. As one of the Title IV-E Demonstration Project (Waiver) counties, Alameda has established prevention programs and as a county is prepared to expand on the work that has been done in the past.
Alameda County plans to implement a community-pathway as part of a larger phased approach to ensure implementation is completed strategically and thoughtfully. The vision for this legacy is a three-phase approach which first ensures all providers are trained on Motivational Interviewing techniques, then develops and sustains community pathways, and finally, focuses on special populations who may need additional prevention services.
Alameda County has an array of services to meet the needs of special populations, including the African American Family Support Group (a program intended to support families coping with mental health conditions and/or substance abuse), Black Men Speak, and Parent Voices of Oakland. Investments in these types of programs are a testament to Alameda County’s commitment to ensuring the voices of those with lived experience are continuously elevated in both practice and policy. Alameda County recognizes that although prevention cross-sector collaboration is essential to comprehensive prevention planning efforts, not all parties have the workforce capacity to attend all meetings and have implemented processes to ensure that there is continuous feedback loop of information and input by essential prevention partners. For example, the Bay Area Collaborative of American Indian Resources (BACAIR) is a critical team of prevention partners and county staff will be the responsible party for both sharing information about progress of CPP’s during BACAIR meetings and will gather feedback from BACAIR to share with the planning and implementation CPP collaborative teams. Alameda stands as a model for other counties intending to implement new prevention programs. Read the Alameda Comprehensive Prevention Plan.