Introduction

The Chicago Strategic Action Council (CSAC) is a collaborative initiative transforming prevention services across Chicago. Founded in 2020, CSAC responds to a fragmented, compliance-driven system that left communities underfunded and misaligned. Through cross-sector collaboration, it unites service providers, funders, and community leaders to build an equity-centered prevention ecosystem. Grounded in grassroots knowledge from historically disinvested neighborhoods, CSAC focuses on culturally responsive, trauma-informed strategies that strengthen youth and family well-being. By fostering collaboration, innovation, and shared learning, CSAC empowers communities to address immediate challenges and create lasting systemic change, ensuring prevention is effective, inclusive, and sustainable.


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CSAC History & Overview

For decades, Chicago’s prevention system operated in silos, fragmented, compliance-driven, and inequitable. Funding was narrowly defined by state requirements, with 90% of prevention dollars tied to compliance metrics rather than community outcomes. This left prevention providers underfunded, disconnected from one another, and unable to meet the needs of youth and families most harmed by structural inequities. Communities were treated as audiences, not authors. Trust was eroded, voices went unheard, and opportunities for meaningful impact were lost.

CSAC was created in 2020 to break this cycle. Born from frustration with the status quo, the Chicago Strategic Action Council brought together prevention leaders, funders, providers, researchers, and community partners under a shared vision: prevention as an equity-centered, community-driven ecosystem. By aligning narratives, tools, and relationships around dignity, belonging, and cultural responsiveness, CSAC reframed prevention as more than compliance, it became a vehicle for systemic transformation.


2020
Founding →

2021
Building Infrastructure →

2022
Early Action & Advocacy →

2023
Scaling Momentum →

2024
Innovation & Prototypes →

2025
A Coordinated Ecosystem →

Today & Tomorrow

CSAC continues to transform Chicago’s prevention system from one that was broken, compliance-heavy, and inequitable into a coordinated, community-rooted ecosystem. By bridging silos, amplifying community voice, and aligning funding with dignity and outcomes, CSAC ensures prevention is not only sustained, but reimagined, anchored in belonging, cultural responsiveness, and systemic equity.



Our Vision

CSAC envisions an Equity-Driven Ecosystem where providers, communities, funders, and policymakers come together to create lasting solutions. Today’s prevention system is too often siloed, transactional, and short-term, leaving families without the coordinated support they deserve. CSAC offers a different path: From Fragmentation to Collaboration. Grounded in dignity and belonging, our approach is built on long-term relationships, shared accountability, and community wisdom. By placing Cultural Responsiveness at the Center, we ensure prevention strategies reflect the lived experiences of historically disinvested neighborhoods. Our purpose is clear: transform prevention into a system that is inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in equity for all.

Our Purpose

To transform prevention into a system that is inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in equity. CSAC centers dignity, belonging, and lived experience, leveraging community wisdom, long-term relationships, and shared accountability. Our strategies ensure that prevention reflects real community needs while building a healthier, more just future for all.

Current System

Fragmented, compliance-driven, and short-sighted
Siloed, transactional, and disconnected from families and youth

Communities left without coordinated, culturally responsive support

Short-term fixes dominate; outcomes often ignored

CSAC Solution

Equity-Driven Prevention Ecosystem From Fragmentation to Collaboration

From Compliance to Community

From Short-Term Fixes to Lasting Change


Help Fix the System


Workgroups



Service Quality

Prevention workforce often struggles with high turnover 

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WORKGROUP MEMBERS


Funding & Strategy

Unstable, short-term grants leave providers under-resourced and 

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WORKGROUP MEMBERS


Coordinated Networks

Prevention efforts are often fragmented, with duplicative referrals

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WORKGROUP MEMBERS


Cultural Responsiveness

Language barriers, cultural blind spots, and systemic bias  

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WORKGROUP MEMBERS

Steering Committee and Council Members


Alternatives,
Inc.

Bessie Alcantara
Executive Director

Pilsen Wellness Center

Paul Naranjo
President/CEO

Chicago Public Schools

Rev. Alan Conley
Office of Faith-Based Initiatives
Community Organizer

Grip Outreach for Youth

Anwar Smith
Executive Director

HRDI
.


Deborah Parnell
Vice-President

Rincon Family Services

Eddy Borrayo
President/CEO

Youth Outreach Services

Jaime Noto
Executive Director

Pilsen Wellness Center

Paul Naranjo
President/CEO

IDHS Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery

Dr. Rafael Rivera
Interim Director/Chief of Staff

Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago

Karen Reitan
President/CEO

IDHS SUPR Bureau of Prevention Services

Samantha Alonis
Deputy Director

Black Community Provider
Network

Michael Holmes
Executive Director



Join a Workgroup


CSAC Current Projects and Work in Action

The Chicago Strategic Action Council (CSAC) is not just a planning body, it is a hub for action and innovation, piloting tangible, equity-focused solutions that repair a prevention system long defined by fragmentation, inequitable funding, and cultural blind spots. Using the Collective Impact Model, CSAC drives projects that directly tackle systemic barriers while building measurable, community-driven change.


Improved Service Quality

The Problem: The prevention workforce has historically faced high turnover, inconsistent standards, and limited career development opportunities, leaving services unstable and inequitable.
The Solution: CSAC is piloting a Standardized Workforce Development System, a cross-agency credentialing and training framework. This pilot prioritizes trauma-informed care and equitable practices, creating pathways for retention, stabilizing the workforce, and ensuring consistent, high-quality prevention services across Chicago.
Coming soon: Workforce Benchmarks Toolkit


Funding Policy and Strategy

The Problem: Prevention providers rely on unstable, short-term, and inequitable funding streams that fail to align with real community needs.
The Solution: Through its Economic Advocacy Campaign, CSAC is leveraging findings from the Prevention Makes Cents report to demonstrate the return on investment of prevention. This work presses for policy reforms and reallocation of state and local dollars toward upstream, community-rooted strategies, ensuring prevention is not just underwritten but truly sustained.
Coming soon: Prevention Economics Playbook

Coordinated Prevention Network

The Problem: Chicago’s prevention system has been fragmented and siloed, with duplicative referrals, poor data integration, and limited collaboration.
The Solution: CSAC is piloting a Collaborative Data-Sharing System, a consent-based platform that allows providers, funders, and grassroots partners to track impact metrics together. This model fosters alignment, accountability, and resource-sharing, transforming a fractured system into a cohesive prevention network where families receive seamless care.
Coming soon: Citywide Referral & Data Hub

Culturally Responsive Prevention Methodology

The Problem: Traditional prevention models have too often ignored the histories, systemic trauma, and lived experiences of BIPOC communities, leaving services culturally disconnected and ineffective.
The Solution (Flagship): CSAC is leading the RWJF Liberated Prevention Prototype, a groundbreaking initiative that uses storytelling, speculative design, and equity-driven futures analysis to co-create prevention models with communities themselves. By elevating lived experience as evidence, developing counter-metrics rooted in trust and belonging, and testing innovative tools like an interactive prevention app, this project redefines what prevention can be. Read More

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What's Next Growth Scenarios

As CSAC looks ahead, the future of prevention depends on the choices we make today. Two possible

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Status Quo Limited Growth

With only $100K–$200K in IDHS funding, CSAC would operate within a single funding source, limiting independence, growth, and innovation. Efforts would focus on maintaining basic coalition convenings, pursuing a few small priorities, and conducting limited systems mapping or piloting select concepts. Resource sharing remains minimal, and incremental improvements provide only partial solutions.

While momentum is sustained, systemic transformation remains out of reach, and only 10–20% of Chicago’s prevention needs would be met. Prevention continues to compete with downstream crisis responses for scarce funding, leaving equity gaps unaddressed.

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Scaling with State-Level Support

With $500,000–$1 million in braided funding, CSAC could launch transformative initiatives like Liberated Prevention, expand reach and impact, and strengthen coalition coordination citywide. Multiple funding streams would increase sustainability, scale local efforts into statewide systems, and ensure resources flow where they matter most.

Workforce development, innovative prevention models, and enhanced infrastructure would be possible, anchoring prevention in community well-being. This scenario moves CSAC from incremental progress to systemic change, allowing prevention to meet 100% of Chicago’s needs while creating a replicable model for equity-driven prevention across Illinois Read More



Stock Photography Integration

We use high-quality stock photography to enhance visual storytelling, ensuring that our resources are both engaging and impactful.


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Be Part of the Change

The time for small fixes has passed. The moment to build an equity-driven prevention system is now. Join CSAC as a co-creator of lasting change. Your knowledge, your expertise, and your voice are vital to shaping Chicago’s future.

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