Taking FAST to Scale: Preventing Youth Violence and Delinquency

Families and Schools Together (FAST) is an evidence-based prevention model, identified by the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Created in Wisconsin in 1988 by Dr. Lynn McDonald, FAST outreach and multi-family groups have a track record of engaging low-income parents of high risk children in 800 communities in 45 states and 5 countries. The overarching DOJ project goals are to maintain outcomes while reducing intervention costs; refine a quality assurance structure of trainers, manuals and checklists to ensure fidelity of local replications; and integrate results of new brain research and randomized controlled trials on FAST towards program reduction of violence, aggression, and family conflict.