Youth substance use is a leading public health concern in the U.S. To address this critical issue, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation launched a five year strategy designed to advance innovative prevention and early intervention approaches to reduce substance use and promote health and wellbeing among youth ages 15-22.
 
The Foundation’s Youth Substance Use Prevention and Early Intervention Strategic Initiative is advancing the way policymakers, providers, communities, and families think about, talk about, and address substance use by developing programs, researching evidence-based practices, and promoting systems change. As of June 30, 2017, the Foundation awarded over $54 million in funding to 60 grantees implementing research, training, service delivery, communications, and policy-related programs and activities.

Abt Global partners with the Foundation by leading the Initiative's Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) project. As the MEL partner, Abt implements an iterative and evolving evaluation and learning process, facilitates opportunities for grantees to cross-fertilizes ideas and solutions, and informs the Foundation’s approach for using data to guide decisions.

The 2017 evaluation report describes the Initiative’s progress to date and highlights key findings and recommendations for ensuring long-term, systemic change. The report also provides important information on lessons learned for the broader substance use prevention field, philanthropists, youth-serving providers, and policymakers.

Read the executive summary

Learn more about our work in behavioral health.