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Who We Are
The Institute for Public Strategies (IPS) has been in the business of positive community change since its inception in 1992.  As a 501c(3) nonprofit organization, IPS works to increase public health and safety by helping communities create sustainable change through Environmental Prevention system design, knowledge transfer, and project planning and implementation.
IPS is headquarted in San Diego County where the environmental prevention field has been established and growing for over 20 years. IPS’ initial projects focused primarily on the effective use of media advocacy, demonstrating the power of this tool for elevating an issue on the public agenda and for helping community members find their voice to participate in public discussion and debate.  As IPS gained invaluable hands-on implementation experience,a more comprehensive and robust project planning and implementation approach emerged.

Environmental Prevention is an approach that identifies and works to change the elements within the environment of a community that support or condone unhealthy or unsafe decisions. It focuses on community systems as opposed to individuals, and is based on the fact that individuals do not make decisions regarding their health and safety solely on the basis of personal characteristics. In reality, they are influenced by a complex set of factors in the environment such as:

  • the rules and regulations of the social institutions to which they belong,
  • the norms of the communities in which they live,
  • the mass media messages to which they are exposed,
  • and the accessibility of alcohol, tobacco and other illicit drugs.
Environmental prevention, focusing on the community context, can complement more familiar individual-based prevention efforts. Utilizing environmental prevention in addition to existing individual-based prevention efforts increases the possibility of significantly impacting many of the public health and safety issues facing our communities.

Implementing an effective environmental prevention project requires project focus and activity in each of the independent components of the Environmental Prevention Implementation Model developed by the Institute for Public Strategies. The five key components are:

  • Media advocacy
  • Policy
  • Applied data and research
  • Intentional organizing
  • Enforcement
model

Today IPS utilizes the comprehensive Environmental Prevention Planning and Implementation Model (shown to the right) when working with communities to create change.
Application of this model as part of a systemic approach ensures long term sustainability of outcomes.
IPS brings a systems perspective to our work, not only in the design and implementation of single EP projects but also in ensuring larger prevention systems to support EP projects. 
What makes IPS a most unique provider of training and technical assistance is our vast hands-on experience with planning and implementing environmental prevention projects in communities just like yours.  The content of our training and technical assistance is what we have learned works from our implementation projects, and incorporates the invaluable research of scientists in this field.  We did not create or develop all of the components of our approach, but we put them together in a way that we know works in communities.

IPS recognizes the value and necessity of cultural and lingual competency in effectively conducting our work. IPS has several employees fluent in Spanish, including native Spanish speakers.  These employees provide translation and interpretation services for publications, documents and meetings in support of IPS projects.  The California Hispanic Commission on Alcohol and Drugs has certified an IPS employee for cultural competency training, which is provided to all employees on a regular basis.  In addition, IPS has several employees highly experienced in engaging and mobilizing communities of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.   IPS has utilized this invaluable capacity to provide training and technical assistance to AOD providers, community groups, and elected officials along the border in several US and Mexico states.
 

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