Rapid City is a Community that Cares

Communities that Care is a community-based prevention system proven to reduce youth health and behavior problems community-wide. 

Our vision is to ensure Rapid City is a safe, healthy and culturally-responsive community by engaging and empowering all youth and families through advocacy, awareness, education and partnership.

Communities that Care uses the Social Development Strategy to foster the success and health of young people through every stage of development.

Providing young people with opportunities, skills and recognition strengthens bonds with family, school and community. Strong bonds motivate young people to adopt healthy standards for behavior.

Proven Results

Positive youth outcomes include:

  • A greater percentage of students who graduated high school on time
  • Better economic outcomes
  • Better mental health in their 20s
  • Significantly fewer sexually-transmitted diseases — especially among those at greatest risk
  • Fewer teen pregnancies

CTC Is Proven Effective

Key Youth Outcomes

A randomized controlled trial of CTC in 24 communities showded that, by Grade 8, youth in CTC communities fared significantly better than youth from control communities:

%

less likely to start smoking cigarettes

%

less likely to start drinking alcohol

%

less likely to start engaging in delinquent behavior

%

less likely to drink alcohol currently

%

less likely to binge drink

%

fewer different delinquent acts in past year

5 Phases of Communities that Care

Phase 1 - Get Started

Communities get ready to introduce CTC

Using the online tools at communitiesthatcare.net and with coaching from a CTC specialist, you can create a small group to explore the advantages of CTC for your community and explore key leader interest. Key community leaders will attend an orientation provided by a CTC specialist in your community. Once key leaders have decided to use the Communities That Care system, your community will start the work of implementing CTC.

Phase 2 - Get Organized

Communities form a board or work within an existing coalition.

After recruiting community board members, they:
•  Learn about prevention science
•  Write a vision statement
•  Organize workgroups
•  Develop a timeline for installing CTC

Phase 3 - Develop a Community Profile

Communities assess community risks and strengths—and identify existing resources.

The community board and workgroups:
•  Review data from the community’s youth survey
•  Identify priority risk and protective factors that predict targeted health and behavior problems
•  Assess community resources that address these factors
•  Identify gaps to be filled in existing resources

Phase 4 - Create a Community Action Plan

The community board creates a plan for prevention work in their community, to:

•  Reduce widespread risks and strengthen protection
•  Define clear, measurable outcomes using assessment data
•  Select and expand tested and effective policies and programs using the Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development website

Phase 5 - Implement & Evaluate

In this final phase, communities:

•  Implement selected programs and policies
•  Monitor and evaluate them
•  Measure results and track progress to ensure improvements are achieved

Communities that Care Guiding Principles

Local

A local collaborative makes decisions from local data to address priority needs.

Data-driven and outcome-focused

 Community-specific data are used to meet goals, measure progress and adjust as needed.

Addresses Underlying Causes

Addresses risk and protective factors of youth health and behavior problems.

Proven Programs

Uses proven programs matched to local priorities selected from local data.

Cost-Effective

Our proven methods return $11.14 for each dollar invested.

Who is involved in Rapid City?

Rapid City has nearly 40 key leaders and nearly 30 community board members involved.

Key leader and community board members represent a variety of systems in the Rapid City community: business, nonprofits, education, legal, government, healthcare, philanthropy and many more!

How You Can Get Involved

There are many opportunities to get involved with CTC! Become a key leader or get on a workgroup.

There are 6 different workgroups that community members can become involved in:

Risk & Protective Factor Assessment Workgroup
Resources Assessment & Evaluation Workgroup
Community Outreach and Public Relations Workgroup
Funding Workgroup
Community Board Maintenance Workgroup
Youth Involvement Workgroup

Get in Touch. Get Involved.

Become a part of building our Rapid City community with Communities That Care.

621 6th St, Ste 100 Rapid City, SD 57701

EMail Us: info@ctcrc.org