The SPF Flower provides us with a visual model for the Strategic Prevention Framework, the guide we use to ensure our work will have the greatest probability of reducing youth substance use. As a member of our coalition, you've been involved in each of these five interrelated steps:

• You've helped us look at data to assess substance use, consumption patterns, risk and protective factors, and consequences in our community.

• You've built your capacity to address youth substance use by helping us establish key partnerships and by deepening your knowledge of prevention science. (Remember the video on environmental strategies?)

• You've helped us plan our interventions to directly address the problems we've identified in our community.

• You've helped us implement our programs by facilitating parenting classes, supporting events like the Spring Carnival and Summer Jam, and by collecting petition signatures.

• You've helped us evaluate our programs by looking at pre- and post-assessment data and analyzing trends in substance use, consumption patterns, risk and protective factors, and consequences to see if our work is having an impact.

Underlying all this work is our continuous effort to be culturally relevant and to ensure the sustainability of our programs.

This summer, we stepped away from direct programming and focused our energy on building our capacity to address youth substance use by attending the Montana Summer Institute, the Coalition Leadership Institute, the CADCA Mid-Year Training Institute, and the Lethal Means Safety and SAPST Training-of-Trainers institutes.