Evidence-Based Intervention Fact Sheets
On the FAST Track: Helping Youth to Succeed by Building Family and Community Relationships
Latino Health Access
Santa Ana, California
YVPP grantee
Latino Health Access in Santa Ana, California, recipient of a SAMHSA Youth Violence Prevention grant, is currently implementing the Families and Schools Together (FAST) program. Created by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, the program helps children to succeed by building protective factors against failure in school, substance abuse, and other risks encountered in their daily lives. It is managed by the agency's director of family programs, Cristina José Kampfner, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and expert in violence prevention and alcohol and other drug treatment.
While all FAST programs are based upon the same theoretical concepts and basic elements, program specifics vary according to site. Latino Health Access's FAST program lasts nine weeks, during which time families come together once a week to eat a meal, socialize, play games, and spend quality time with their children at a local elementary school. Program activities are designed to cultivate respect for parents, improve family relationships, increase parental involvement in children's lives, and create an interdependent support network among parents, the school, and the community.
As many grantees know, it can be challenging to find interventions suitable to the culture and socioeconomic status of specific populations. Latino Health Access was in need of a program appropriate for a largely Spanish speaking, Mexican-born community. José Kampfner has found that the FAST model's emphasis on the cultural competency of staff and its use of experiential learning have made the program adaptable to the needs of program participants.
Cultural competency is not simply a mantra among FAST personnel; rather, it is an intrinsic part of the program. This is because the team of parents and professionals delivering the intervention must be representative of the local culture, ethnicity, language, and social class of participating families. Once this team has been formed, 60 percent of the program can be molded to the needs of the target population.
The focus on experiential learning, which emphasizes activities rather than lectures, makes the program adaptable because everyone can participate, regardless of literacy and language skills. Moreover, since FAST staff members are representative of the target population, they can readily translate messages into the native language of participants. For a population such as Santa Ana's, in which many do not speak English and illiteracy rates are high, this facility with participants' languages helps make the program a suitable vehicle for change.
Thus far, José Kampfner has been extremely pleased with the program's successes. She says, for instance, that the program has helped parents overcome a feeling of isolation. Many work two or even three jobs and as a result, lack the time to develop a social network. José Kampfner said "Especially for first generation immigrants, I really think it's very important that they create social capital among themselves." Social capital refers to those aspects of a social structure, such as interpersonal trust, norms of reciprocity and mutual aid that serve as resources for individuals and help to enable collective action.¹ She cited the importance of FAST activities in creating this capital. "I love the fact that people eat together because I think that in our community, as in many communities, eating together is a very important thing."
Among results of the program's first evaluation are reports of increased family cohesion, improved social relationships, greater support for parents, improvements in the behavior of FAST children and better relationships between teachers and parents. José Kampfner said that the program teaches parents that they don't need to provide children with material things in order to foster positive development; instead, what they need to do is make time for them. Yara Cortes, who participated in FAST along with her husband and three children, echoed this sentiment. "What I liked best about the program," Cortes said, "was seeing my husband play with my son. Since he works a lot, he hardly has any time to play with him.[now] he has realized that it's important for him to spend time with him."
For more information about the FAST program, contact the FAST National Training and Evaluation Center at (888) 629-2481 or (608) 663-2382. You can also visit their Web site at http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/fast/FASTNational/.
¹Berkman LF, Kawachi I. Social Epidemiology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
