Coaching Boys into Men is an evidence-based dating violence prevention program for coaches to implement with male athletes. A common adaptation of this program is delivery by domestic violence and sexual violence prevention advocates instead of coaches. We explored how this implementer adaptation may influence athlete uptake of program messages and outcomes. Randomly, one school received the program delivered by an advocate while another school received the program delivered by coaches. Athletes completed baseline and follow-up surveys (n = 148), and a subset who received the advocate-led program participated in focus groups (four groups; n = 26). We compared changes in athlete attitudes and behaviors and conducted thematic analyses with qualitative data. We found no significant differences between athletes who received the program from the advocate versus their coaches. Athletes highlighted the advocate's delivery and role as a non-judgmental adult ally as qualities that influenced their uptake of program messages. The acceptability of the advocate-led program may be related to the implementer type along with specific implementer characteristics and delivery methods. Using advocates together with coaches as implementers could increase the reach of this program. Further study of best practices for Coaching Boys into Men adaptation is needed to guide program dissemination and sustainability.

Despite the growing number of evidence-based programs (EBPs) for youth and families, few are well-integrated in service systems or widely adopted by communities. One set of challenges to widespread adoption of EBPs relates to the transfer of programs from research and development to practice settings. This is often because program developers have limited guidance on how to prepare their programs for broad dissemination in practice settings. We describe Three Cs of Translation, which are key areas that are essential for developers to translate their EBPs from research to practice settings: (1) Communicate the underlying theory in terms easily understandable to end users, (2) Clarify fidelity and flexibility, and (3) Codify implementation lessons and examples. Program developers are in the best position to describe their interventions, to define intervention core components, to clarify fidelity and flexibility, and to codify implementation lessons from intervention studies. We note several advantages for developers to apply the Three Cs prior to intervention dissemination and provide specific recommendations for translation.