Community readiness stages of change to achieve community transformational resilience

The Community Readiness Model for Change describes nine stages of incremental changes for community prevention. In this chapter, we utilize this model to describe 8 years of change led by South Tucson Prevention Coalition (STPC) that transformed one community from a level of tolerance of adolescent alcohol use to a level of professionalization of prevention strategies. This model helps to identify the incremental changes over time in community alcohol norms that indicate how ready the community is to receive different prevention strategies. The Community Readiness Model for Change requires community involvement to develop prevention strategies that are rooted in community strengths. This model also requires that the community assesses their own level of readiness for change in order to develop their capacity to determine the type and level of intervention that would be most appropriate. In this chapter, we describe the model and then apply it to 8 years of work by STPC to highlight changes in community alcohol norms, changes in prevention strategies, and integration of research techniques. Utilizing community readiness interviews and retrospective interviews with coalition members, we describe the community transformations that occurred.