Strengthen School and Community Capacity

Abstract

Creating capacity in schools and communities promotes academic, social, and emotional competence for all students, including those with serious emotional disturbance as well as those with incipient or identified emotional or behavioral disorders. Capacity building in school settings is a multifaceted systemic process implemented through a flexible continuum of school-based primary prevention, early intervention, and intensive intervention services. This comprehensive approach recognizes that school environments can be adaptive systems with the potential to prevent or ameliorate behavior problems. Successful capacity-building efforts are closely tied to other target area initiatives, especially collaborating with community agencies and establishing partnerships with families. We draw on the research on educational restructuring and an analysis of case studies of system change to identify cross-cutting themes important to the implementation of capacity-building efforts. Implications for sustaining capacity-building efforts are also discussed.