“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” - Benjamin Franklin
Prevention and Early Intervention
Did you know?
- Education costs less than ignorance
- Preventive health care costs far less than emergency rooms
- Preventive family services costs less than out-of-home care
- Head Start costs much less than prisons
- The average annual per prisoner cost is $22,650, which is almost three times as much as a public school student
Joint Initiatives for Youth and Families is a prevention focused not-for-profit interagency collaboration. One of our major focus areas is to develop cost savings services and programs that are focused on either preventing children from entering the systems, or intervening to help them exit the system at earlier stages in their development.
Why is prevention important?
Think of the growth of a child from birth through adulthood as a series of points along a continuum.
At crucial points in a child’s development, risks and disadvantages accumulate to make a successful transition to productive adulthood significantly unlikely and involvement in the criminal justice system significantly more likely.
What are some of the things that we do that focus on prevention?
- Predict need, identify risk, and prevent damage
- Target interventions and monitor progress
- Adapt and replicate strategies that work in other communities
- Change policies
- Control costs to families, organizations, and society
An example of one of our preventative programs:
JI facilitated implementation of the El Paso County WAY for Families (HB1451) initiative, at the request of the El Paso County Department of Human Services. The Wraparound process currently being implemented is based on the work of Wraparound Milwaukee in Wisconsin. This process works to keep children and youth in their homes and communities to the greatest extent possible. From July 2008 through June 2010, a total of 367 children and 198 families participated in the Wraparound process. In addition to successful, positive outcomes there was a significant savings to the involved systems.
