SELECT, ADAPT, EVALUATE

Whether you've already chosen an approach or are in the process of selecting an approach for your community, you may need to make adjustments, or adaptations, to increase the fit in your setting. Adaptations are changes made to an approach with practice- or research-based evidence of effectiveness, including additions, deletions, modifications, and reordering.

You may feel the need to make adaptations to an approach for several reasons, including the following:

• Increase the relevance of materials and participant understanding
• Increase participant engagement and community decision-making
• Create or maintain relationships with participants
• Respond to limited time and resources
• Align with lived experiences, cultural traditions, and religious beliefs and practices
• Align with community needs

Find a balance between implementing an approach as it was designed and ensuring the approach is relevant to the community and setting. One strategy to ensure your approach meets the needs of the community is to involve community members in planning discussions.

• Worksheet 3. Assessing Fit for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [106 KB, 1 Page, 508]
• Worksheet 4. Planning Green Light Adaptations for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [107 KB, 1 Page, 508]
• Worksheet 5. Making Green Light and Avoiding and Red Light Adaptations for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [100 KB, 1 Page, 508]
• Worksheet 6: Documenting Adaptation [92 KB, 1 Page, 508]

Using the Traffic Light Framework to Adapt Approaches

Determine if proposed adaptations support the essential elements of an approach.

A traffic light framework can easily help describe whether an adaptation supports the essential elements of an approach or not. To help visualize this framework, below are examples of a good (green light) or poor (red light) adaptation to a training curriculum:

If a facilitator extends the length of a training discussion about an important concept to allow for additional, relevant participant engagement, it would likely be a good, or “green light,” adaptation, since it does not change the key messages, or essential elements, of the training.

However, if a facilitator shortens or skips that same important discussion, it would likely be a poor, or “red light" adaptation, since participants would not have the opportunity to learn key messages from the curriculum.

Use the following section below to explore adaptation examples using the Traffic Light Framework. Please download Worksheet 6: Documenting Adaptation [92 KB, 1 Page, 508] before starting the activity.

Adaptation Examples

Examples for Programs

Click on the WHAT, HOW, and WHO tabs to reveal the essential elements of the approach.

whathowwho

Essential Element
The session should increase understanding that violence is a serious problem.

Adaptation
Implementer changes a brief lecture about violence into group conversations.

MAY BE GREEN LIGHT IF...
Key messages and activities about violence are delivered and the discussion is well managed.

MAY BE RED LIGHT IF...
Implementer is not able to establish rapport with and among participants and participants feel unsafe to discuss sensitive issues.

Examples for Community and Societal Approaches

Click on the WHAT, HOW, and WHO tabs to reveal the essential elements of the approach.

whathowwho

Essential Element
Clearly defining public and private property while enhancing a sense of community, well-being and safety in public places.

Adaptation
Instead of creating a boundary using landscaping, partners propose building a fence around the boundaries of a public park.

MAY BE GREEN LIGHT IF...
The fence selected is low and decorative and a wide opening is left at the entrance to the park to ensure individuals feel welcome to use the space.

MAY BE RED LIGHT IF...
A high chain-link fence is selected that gives the impression that the space is off limits or that individuals are not welcome to use the space.

Yellow Light Adaptations

It may not always be clear whether an adaptation is green or red. Some adaptations may seem more like “yellow light” adaptations. In these cases, consider seeking input from fellow practitioners, technical assistance providers, or developers, and explore whether evidence about the outcomes of a particular adaptation exists. Facilitated discussion between prevention practitioners and community members can provide insights into what adaptations can better serve their community. When you adapt or adjust approaches, include health equity considerations. Make sure any adaptations accurately reflect the priorities and culture of the community. When it's difficult to decide whether to implement an adaptation, relying on experience or pilot-testing a program may be helpful.

An Example of a Yellow Light Adaptation for a Program

A practitioner wants to add content to a parenting program intended to promote positive parenting skills and prevent child abuse and neglect. What if a practitioner wants to add topics not covered in the curriculum, to address specific concerns raised by parents in the group? Adding topics to address parent concerns may increase group engagement and provide helpful information, but it may shorten or remove some of the program's essential content and could include inconsistent information about essential program messages.

An Example of a Yellow Light Adaptation for a Community-level Approach

Someone could suggest adding adult volunteers to assist school staff with monitoring campus “hot spots” for physical fights, to help promote a safe school environment. While adult volunteers may cover hot spots and alleviate the burden on teachers and administrators who have competing demands, these adults may not know the students well or or understand the school climate. This could cause unintended consequences, such as undermining students' sense of school connectedness.

Adaptation Timing

Approach adaptations may be made before or during delivery in your local setting.

Planned Adaptation

Planned adaptations made before implementation are designed to leverage existing opportunities and respond to existing constraints. Planned adaptations often apply to the entire approach rather than to a specific activity. Examples of planned adaptations in program and community and social change approaches include the following:

• Tailoring most or all activities in a program to be responsive to the historical context and culture(s) of the participant group
• Working with nontraditional partners, like local farmers, who will provide plants to help define public and private spaces

Activities listed in the Worksheet 3. Assessing Fit for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [106 KB, 1 Page, 508] may include adaptations that require some thought about whether they should be integrated into an approach.

Worksheet 4. Planning Green Light Adaptations for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [107 KB, 1 Page, 508] can be used to assess whether and how these adaptations should be integrated into an approach.

Field Adaptation

Field adaptations made during an approach's implementation include changes to a specific activity or component in response to opportunities and constraints during delivery. Examples of field adaptations in programs and community and societal approaches include:

• Shortening the length of one session because of a fire drill and adding the skipped content to a subsequent session
• Using newly awarded funding to offer paid summer employment instead of volunteer opportunities for young people working on physical redesign projects

Worksheet 5. Making Green Light and Avoiding and Red Light Adaptations for Programs and Community and Societal Approaches Worksheet [100 KB, 1 Page, 508] has a traffic light delivery framework that may help you identify and group field adaptations that may come up during delivery.

VetoVille: Step 4 | Categorize the Adaptations

Categorize the Adaptations

Before implementing adaptations, the LGBTQ+ organization and school system partners categorized the adaptations using the traffic light framework to ensure their adaptations were more likely to improve, rather than harm, program effectiveness. They decided that adapting the language and examples to be relevant to the students was a green light adaptation and would improve the program fit. This is because the program content would be tailored specifically to the intended audience and make the activities more engaging and interesting for the students. The partners carefully considered adding a topic around sexual health; this was a yellow light adaptation, since it added a key message to the program. However, after discussing the sexual health topic addition with partners, as well as incorporating feedback from parents at a parent-teacher association meeting, this adaptation was green lit.