Purpose: To describe lessons learned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Community Coalition Partnership Program (CCPP) about building a community's capacity to prevent teen pregnancy through strengthening of partnerships, mobilization of community resources, and changes in the number and quality of community programs.
Methods: A multi-component post-test-only evaluation. In-person interviews (n = 364) were conducted with a sample of CCPP project staff, evaluators, and community and agency members from each of the 13 CCPP communities.
Results: All partnerships reported that new groups worked together to address teen pregnancy prevention; however, more time, effort, and resources than anticipated were spent engaging these groups and strengthening their partnerships. Respondents reported increases in community awareness of the problem of teen pregnancy and the willingness to discuss the issue. As a result of partnerships' activities, knowledge and skills related to addressing teen pregnancy improved among partnership members, but respondents were concerned that the broader community did not share these gains. To a lesser extent, respondents reported that partners worked together to reduce duplication and fill gaps in services either through increased collaboration and/or differentiation of activities. Respondents from most of the partnerships also reported new programs were developed as a result of the project; however, in several partnerships, only a few programs were developed in their community. Many respondents doubted whether the limited mobilization of resources during the program would translate into increased agency and community capacity.
Conclusions: Overall, increased partner skills, program improvements, and new programs did not appear to be sufficient to affect community capacity. Research is needed to identify the pathways between changes in community capacity and in individual-level behavior that might result in the avoidance or reduction of teen pregnancy.