Introduces the concept of community readiness for substance abuse prevention programming. Defines community readiness, provides a rationale for assessing a community's readiness prior to the planning or implementation of prevention activities, identifies seven factors for assessing community readiness, and offers strategies for increasing readiness factors found to be deficient. Case study. Intended for use with the handbook "Drug Abuse Prevention: What Works" and "Drug Abuse Prevention and Community Readiness: Training Facilitator's Manual."

Community readiness is the degree to which a community is willing and prepared to take action on an issue. The Community Readiness Model was developed by researchers at the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research (Oetting, Donnermeyer, Plested, Edwards, Kelly, and Beauvais, 1995) to help communities be more successful in their efforts to address a variety of issues, such as drug and alcohol use and HIV/AIDs prevention. This handbook describes what community readiness is, the benefits of using the Community Readiness Model, and using the model to conduct community readiness assessments and develop action plans. rating scales and score sheets are included.

Community readiness is the degree to which a community is willing and prepared to take action on an issue. The Community Readiness Model was developed by researchers at the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research (Oetting, Donnermeyer, Plested, Edwards, Kelly, and Beauvais, 1995) to help communities be more successful in their efforts to address a variety of issues, such as drug and alcohol use and HIV/AIDs prevention. This handbook describes what community readiness is, the benefits of using the Community Readiness Model, and using the model to conduct community readiness assessments and develop action plans. rating scales and score sheets are included.