Prevention, community services and Proposition 36.

The Prevention Panel of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence conference presented several examples of community services and prevention policies that should be brought into the mix of services and supports for Prop 36 and for other court diversion programs. This article summarizes those presentations and suggests how they might be put to work as effective alternatives to incarceration.

Planning and programming server intervention initiatives for fraternities and sororities: Experiences at a large university.

A student health service and prevention research organization collaborated with a fraternity/sorority student planning group to establish an alcohol-problem prevention program for a 3,600-person Greek-letter community. Students created a program of multiple server-intervention strategies designed specifically to prevent problems with the use of alcohol at fraternity-house social events. Accepted as policy by students and the university, the program dealt successfully with several of these problems in its first two years of operation. However, early resistance by fraternity alumni advisors to the program's formal research/evaluation components has restricted further program development. The program is described in detail, and the resistance encountered by the program is analyzed as an issue for development of prevention policy in large organizations.

Task force report: sociophysical settings and mental health: opportunities for mental health services planning.

President Kennedy's "bold new approach" remains compelling 15 years after it was first announced. Mental health services at the community level have come a long way since the community mental health center program's establishment in 1963. Mental health manpower, advances in treatment technology, and volumes of service all have grown remarkably; but much still remains to be done to integrate community mental health services into the communities they serve in the planning of human services generally, and particularly in emphasis on preventive care. The National Council of Community Mental Health Centers Environmental Assessment Task Force has two closely related charges in these latter areas. First, to inquire into the "environmental" aspects of mental health at the community level; and, second, to explore environmental perspectives for the establishment of prevention initiatives in the delivery of services. This paper explores that charge by seeking a perspective on environment that traces the intersection of the built environment and social-interpersonal behavior with special attention to the implications for mental well-being. Implications of this perspective for community mental health center roles in community planning are considered, with reference to the establishment of preventive services.