Implementation Through Community Coalitions: The Power of Technology and of Community-Based Intermediaries.

The measurement and monitoring of implementation fidelity or of adaptations to interventions in the ways described by the innovative papers in this special issue implies the need for an 'implementation infrastructure' to help assure the quality and hence impact of prevention delivery systems. In our work in Australia through schools and government-funded community services in socially disadvantaged communities we have begun to build such an infrastructure, which we call a Prevention Translation and Support System (PTSS). We offer our methodologies not as a template but as an illustration of one approach, designed for use with community coalitions. We aim to work in respectful partnerships with frontline professionals to construct, test, modify, and implement measurement tools and other electronic resources that can facilitate data-driven decision making and evidence-based practice, and generally promote the translation of prevention science into routine practice. The development and use of these technological resources are supported by community workers called Collective Change Facilitators, who act as a 'human bridge' between the worlds of research and practice. They serve as a critical friend to community coalitions, while also translating the needs of service deliverers back to the researchers and practitioners building the PTSS. One example of this engagement was the development and use of a multidimensional measure of coalition function, the Coalition Wellbeing Survey, that helps coalition leaders plan responsive action to overcome identified areas of difficulty and strengthen coalition function. The need for such a tool, accompanied by comprehensive resources, was identified early in our work as essential for the high-quality implementation by community coalitions of evidence-based services. We conclude that implementation of preventive innovations on a large scale, especially those in which technology is embedded to support measurement and monitoring, calls for the creation of new kinds of intermediate organizations that can help sustain a continuous process of research and quality improvement in the field.

Towards Scalable, Integrative Assessment of Children's Self-Regulatory Capabilities: New Applications of Digital Technology.

The assessment of self-regulation in children is of significant interest to researchers within education, clinical and developmental psychology, and clinical neuroscience, given its importance to adaptive functioning across a wide range of social, educational, interpersonal, educational and health domains. Because self-regulation is a complex, multidimensional construct, a range of assessment approaches have been developed to assess its various components including behavioural, cognitive and emotional domains. In recent years, digital technology has been increasingly used to enhance or supplement existing measurement approaches; however, developments have predominantly focused on translating traditional testing paradigms into digital formats. There is a need for more innovation in digital psychological assessments that harness modern mechanisms such as game-based design and interactivity. Such approaches have potential for the development of scalable, adaptable universal approaches to screening and assessment of children's self-regulatory capabilities, to facilitate early identification of difficulties in individuals and also guide planning and decision-making at a population level. We highlight a novel, innovative digital assessment tool for children called Rumble's Quest, a new measure of children's socio-emotional functioning that shows promise as an integrative assessment of well-being and self-regulation, and which incorporates both self-report and direct assessment of cognitive self-regulation. This tool is scalable, can be integrated into normal classroom activities, and forms part of a comprehensive prevention support system that can be used to guide stakeholders' decision-making regarding early intervention and support at the individual, classroom, school and community level. We finish by discussing other innovative possibilities for psychological assessment with children, using new and emerging technologies and assessment approaches.

Boozy Nights and Violent Fights: Perceptions of Environmental Cues to Violence and Crime in Licensed Venues.

This article examines perceptions of environmental cues to crime, violence, and injuries in barroom settings, and how they differ between bar fight participants and non-participants. Bouncer friendliness, patron sex composition, and room temperature were chosen as experimental variables based on three criteria: (a) emerged as a theme in bar user focus groups, (b) unclear effects in the literature, and (c) policy relevant and easy to modify. These experimental variables were manipulated in written vignettes set in a bar. A three-part online questionnaire recorded 681 male university students' responses to questions on demographics, the experiment, drinking and clubbing habits, and the Snell Masculinity Scale. A 2 × 2 × 2 randomized independent groups factorial design with covariates was embedded in the questionnaire, measuring the effects of the experimental variables on bar users' perceived fear of victimization, likelihood and frequency of crime, venue preference, and perceived severity of injuries after accounting for prior bar fight participation and masculinity. Participants generally rated perceived fear of victimization, likelihood and frequency of crime, and severity of injuries to be highest when the bouncer was unfriendly, the temperature was hot, and patrons were majority male. Only main effects were significant ( p < .01). Masculinity scale responses were not related to participant perceptions. While fight participants (9.8% of the sample) and non-participants had similar perceptions of the risk associated with certain environmental cues, fight participants were significantly (a) less fearful of victimization in settings they perceived as dangerous and (b) more willing to drink in any hypothetical venue.

Trouble in paradise: The crime and health outcomes of the Surfers Paradise licensed venue lockout.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: The lockout intervention has become embedded in Australian alcohol policy with little scientific evidence of its effectiveness in reducing violence and disorder. This paper reports an evaluation of the Queensland lockout pilot in Surfers Paradise. Patrons could not enter or re-enter licensed venues after 3 am, while patrons inside at this time could stay until close. DESIGN AND METHODS: Using police and ambulance data, time series analyses examined the impact of tourism seasons and the lockout on rates of crime, violence, injury and intoxication. Additional analyses were also conducted to show spatial and temporal changes in crime over time. RESULTS: Both police and ambulance data showed that the lockout introduction had no statistically significant impact on rates of crime, violence, head and neck injuries, and intoxication over the 2 years following lockout. Hot spot maps indicated limited spatial shift of crime within Surfers Paradise following the lockout introduction, with evidence of a temporary intensification of crime in already established hot spots. We found a moderate statistically significant change in the 24 h distribution of crime after the lockout implementation, suggesting temporal displacement of crime. DISCUSSION: Results support the small existing body of evidence on lockouts that indicates they are largely ineffective in reducing crime and injuries in entertainment districts. CONCLUSION: As multi-pronged strategies that include a lockout gain in popularity, further investigation should focus on identifying the key drivers of successful interventions such as the Newcastle strategy, to better refine these interventions for replication and evaluation elsewhere. [De Andrade D, Homel R, Townsley M. Trouble in paradise: The crime and health outcomes of the Surfers Paradise licensed venue lockout. Drug Alcohol Rev 2016;35:564-572].

Collective efficacy as a task specific process: examining the relationship between social ties, neighborhood cohesion and the capacity to respond to violence, delinquency and civic problems.

In the neighborhood effects literature, collective efficacy is viewed as the key explanatory process associated with the spatial distribution of a range of social problems. While many studies usefully focus on the consequences of collective efficacy, in this paper we examine the task specificity of collective efficacy and consider the individual and neighborhood factors that influence residents' perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy for specific tasks. Utilizing survey and administrative data from 4,093 residents nested in 148 communities in Australia, we distinguish collective efficacy for particular threats to social order and assess the relative importance of social cohesion and neighborhood social ties to the development of collective efficacy for violence, delinquency and civic/political issues. Our results indicate that a model separating collective efficacy for specific problems from social ties and the more generalized notions of social cohesion is necessary when understanding the regulation potential of neighborhoods.

Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL) Griffith birth cohort study: background and methods.

The health of an individual is determined by the interaction of genetic and individual factors with wider social and environmental elements. Public health approaches to improving the health of disadvantaged populations will be most effective if they optimise influences at each of these levels, particularly in the early part of the life course. In order to better ascertain the relative contribution of these multi-level determinants there is a need for robust studies, longitudinal and prospective in nature, that examine individual, familial, social and environmental exposures. This paper describes the study background and methods, as it has been implemented in an Australian birth cohort study, Environments for Healthy Living (EFHL): The Griffith Study of Population Health. EFHL is a prospective, multi-level, multi-year longitudinal birth cohort study, designed to collect information from before birth through to adulthood across a spectrum of eco-epidemiological factors, including genetic material from cord-blood samples at birth, individual and familial factors, to spatial data on the living environment. EFHL commenced the pilot phase of recruitment in 2006 and open recruitment in 2007, with a target sample size of 4000 mother/infant dyads. Detailed information on each participant is obtained at birth, 12-months, 3-years, 5-years and subsequent three to five yearly intervals. The findings of this research will provide detailed evidence on the relative contribution of multi-level determinants of health, which can be used to inform social policy and intervention strategies that will facilitate healthy behaviours and choices across sub-populations.

Very young adolescents and alcohol: evidence of a unique susceptibility to peer alcohol use.

AIM: The aim of this study is to examine the susceptibility of very young adolescents (10-12 years of age) to peer alcohol-related influences, compared to older adolescents (13-14 years of age). METHODS: The analysis sample consisted of 7064 adolescents in grade 6 (modal age 11) or grade 8 (modal age 13) from 231 schools in 30 communities across three Australian States. Key measures were adolescent reports of alcohol use (past 30 days) and the number of peers who consume alcohol without their parent's awareness. Control variables included parent alcohol use, family relationship quality, pubertal advancement, school connectedness, sensation seeking, depression, length of time in high school, as well as age, gender, father/mother education, and language spoken at home. A multi-level model of alcohol use was used to account for school-level clustering on the dependent variable. RESULTS: For both groups, the number of peers who consumed alcohol was associated with alcohol use, but Grade 6 students showed a unique susceptibility to peripheral involvement with peer drinking networks (having one friend who consumed alcohol). CONCLUSION: The results point to the importance of monitoring and responding to comparatively minor shifts in the proportion of peers who use alcohol, particularly among very young adolescents.

The influence of families on early adolescent school connectedness: evidence that this association varies with adolescent involvement in peer drinking networks.

School connectedness is central to the long term well-being of adolescents, and high quality parent-child relationships facilitate school connectedness. This study examined the extent to which family relationship quality is associated with the school connectedness of pre- and early teenagers, and how this association varies with adolescent involvement in peer drinking networks. The sample consisted of 7,372 10-14 year olds recruited from 231 schools in 30 Australian communities. Participants completed the Communities that Care youth survey. A multi-level model of school connectedness was used, with a random term for school-level variation. Key independent variables included family relationship quality, peer drinking networks, and school grade. Control variables included child gender, sensation seeking, depression, child alcohol use, parent education, and language spoken at home. For grade 6 students, the association of family relationship quality and school connectedness was lower when peer drinking networks were present, and this effect was nonsignificant for older (grade 8) students. Post hoc analyses indicated that the effect for family relationship quality on school connectedness was nonsignificant when adolescents in grade 6 reported that the majority of friends consumed alcohol. The results point to the importance of family-school partnerships in early intervention and prevention.

A prospective study investigating the impact of school belonging factors on negative affect in adolescents.

School belonging, measured as a unidimensional construct, is an important predictor of negative affective problems in adolescents, including depression and anxiety symptoms. A recent study found that one such measure, the Psychological Sense of School Membership scale, actually comprises three factors: Caring Relations, Acceptance, and Rejection. We explored the relations of these factors with negative affect in a longitudinal study of 504 Australian Grade 7 and 8 students. Each school belonging factor contributed to the prediction of negative affect in cross-sectional analyses. Scores on the Acceptance factor predicted subsequent negative affect for boys and girls, even controlling for prior negative affect. For girls, the Rejection factor was also significant in the prospective analysis. These findings have implications for the design of interventions and are further confirmation that school belonging should be considered a multidimensional construct.

Family relationship quality and early alcohol use: evidence for gender-specific risk processes.

OBJECTIVE: Family characteristics (relationship quality, parental behaviors, and attitudes relating to alcohol use) are known to influence alcohol use in the mid-teen years, and there is evidence that family characteristics have different influences on mid-teen girls versus boys. This study examined child gender differences in the association of family relationship quality, parental disapproval of children's alcohol use, and parental alcohol use with early adolescent alcohol use. METHOD: Grade 6 and 8 students (modal age 11 and 13, respectively; N = 6,837; 52.6% female) were recruited from 231 schools across three Australian states. Hypotheses were tested using two-level ordinal logistic regression (individuals nested within schools). The main dependent measure was lifetime frequency of early adolescent alcohol consumption. Independent variables included mother's/father's alcohol use, closeness, conflict, and disapproval of adolescent alcohol use. Control variables included sensation seeking, peer alcohol use, and socioeconomic disadvantage. RESULTS: The key findings were that for the young age group (Grade 6), emotional closeness to the parent of the opposite sex was protective. Family conflict was associated with females' drinking in both age groups but not males' drinking. CONCLUSIONS: There was evidence of gender differences in the epidemiology of family relationship quality and early alcohol use. Social developmental models may need revision to account for these child gender differences. Gender-specific family dynamics may be an important consideration for family-oriented prevention strategy.

The influence of parents, siblings and peers on pre- and early-teen smoking: a multilevel model.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Despite considerable success in tobacco control, many teenagers in Australia and other industrialised countries still smoke tobacco. There is mixed evidence on the relative influence of proximal social networks (parents/siblings/peers) on pre- and early-teen smoking, and no research has examined how these influences compare after accounting for school- and community-level effects.The aim of this study was to compare the relative influences of parents, siblings and peers, after accounting for school- and community-level variation in smoking. DESIGN AND METHODS: A cross-sectional fixed and random effects model of smoking prevalence was used, with individuals (n = 7314) nested within schools (n = 231) nested within communities (n = 30). Grade 6 and 8 students (modal ages 11 and 13 years) completed an on-line survey. Key variables included parent/sibling/peer use. Controls included alcohol involvement, sensation seeking, pro-social beliefs, laws/norms about substance use and school commitment. RESULTS: There was significant variation in smoking at both the school and community levels, supporting the need for a multilevel model. Individual-level predictors accounted for much of the variance at higher levels. The strongest effects were for number of friends who smoke, sibling smoking and alcohol involvement. Smaller significant effects were found for parent smoking. At the community level, socioeconomic disadvantage was significant, but community-level variance in pro-social and drug-related laws/norms was not related to smoking. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Cross-level interactions were generally non-significant. Early teenage smoking was best explained by sibling and peer smoking, and individual risks largely accounted for the substantial variation observed across schools and communities. In terms of future tobacco control, findings point to the utility of targeting families in disadvantaged communities.

How do school connectedness and attachment to parents interrelate in predicting adolescent depressive symptoms?

In this study, we tested whether school connectedness mediated or moderated the effect of parental attachment on adolescent depressive symptoms. A sample of 153 secondary school students ranging from 8th to 12th grade were assessed using measures of parental attachment, school connectedness, and depressive symptoms. Independently, parental attachment and school connectedness accounted for 28% and 49% of the variance in depressive symptoms respectively, whereas collectively they accounted for 53% of the variance. School connectedness only partially mediated the relationship between parental attachment and depressive symptoms, and there was no significant moderation effect.

Language delays, reading delays, and learning difficulties: interactive elements requiring multidimensional programming.

Researchers have hypothesized four levels of instructional dialogue and claimed that teachers can improve children's language development by incorporating these dialogue levels in their classrooms. It has also been hypothesized that enhancing children's early language development enhances children's later reading development. This quasi-experimental research study investigated both of these hypotheses using a collaborative service delivery model for Grade 1 children with language difficulties from a socially and economically disadvantaged urban community in Australia. Comparing the end-of-year reading achievement scores for the 57 children who received the language intervention with those of the 59 children in the comparison group, the findings from this research are supportive of both hypotheses. The interrelationships between learning difficulties, reading difficulties, and language difficulties are discussed along with children's development in vocabulary, use of memory strategies and verbal reasoning, and the need for multidimensional programming.

Guardians and handlers: the role of bar staff in preventing and managing aggression.

AIMS: To identify good and bad behaviors by bar staff in aggressive incidents, the extent these behaviors apparently reflect aggressive intent, and the association of aggressive staff behavior with level of aggression by patrons. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Data on staff behavior in incidents of aggression were collected by 148 trained observers in bars and clubs on Friday and Saturday night between midnight and 2 a.m. in Toronto, Canada. Behaviors of 809 staff involved in 417 incidents at 74 different bars/clubs were analysed using descriptive statistics and three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses. MEASUREMENTS: Observers' ratings of 28 staff behaviors were used to construct two scales that measured escalating/aggressive aspects of staff behavior. Apparent intent level for bar staff was dichotomized into (1) no aggressive intent versus (2) probable or definite aggressive intent. Five levels of patron aggression were defined: no aggression, non-physical, minor physical, moderate physical and severe physical. FINDINGS: The most common aggressive behaviors of staff were identified. Staff were most aggressive when patrons were either non-aggressive or highly aggressive and staff were least aggressive when patrons exhibited non-physical aggression or minor physical aggression. Taking apparent intent into consideration decreased staff aggression scores for incidents in which patrons were highly aggressive indicating that some aggression by staff in these instances had non-aggressive intent (e.g. to prevent injury); however, apparent intent had little effect on staff aggression scores in incidents with non-aggressive patrons. CONCLUSION: Although there is potential for staff to act as guardians or handlers, they often themselves became offenders when they responded to barroom problems. The practical implications are different for staff aggression with nonaggressive patrons versus with aggressive patrons.

Making licensed venues safer for patrons: what environmental factors should be the focus of interventions?

The Queensland Safety Action Projects operationalized a problem-focused responsive regulatory model in order to make nightclubs and other venues safer. A problem-focused approach requires a careful analysis of the total environment of licensed venues, including drinking and its controls but also the social and physical environments, patron mix and management practices. We present new analyses of observational data collected in 1994 and 1996 in the north Queensland cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. Major reductions in aggression and violence were observed, as well as improvements in many aspects of the venue environment and management practices. We do not argue in this paper that the interventions caused the environmental and management changes, although we believe this to be true. Rather, our assumption is that whatever caused them, some of the environmental and management changes were critical to the reductions in aggression. Regression techniques were used to identify those factors that best explained the declines in aggression. For reduced physical violence four key predictors were identified: improved comfort, availability of public transport, less overt sexual activity and fewer highly drunk men. For reduced non-physical aggression, four key predictors were: fewer Pacific Islander patrons, less male swearing, fewer intoxicated patrons requiring that management be called and more chairs with armrests. The analyses are consistent with the argument that the control of drinking is necessary but not sufficient to reduce aggression and violence.