ACTRA (Acción Transformadora), incubated through the AIM Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program, has just completed a strong first year — showing both traction and potential for impact. Said potential has led to the Happier Lives Institute awarding ACTRA an Honorable Mention for promising cost-effectiveness at scale.

In this post, we will briefly outline our first year's traction, future plans, and the current opportunity to fund ACTRA. For a more thorough introduction into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-informed approaches to prevent crime, ACTRA's Theory of Change and the evidence supporting it, you may also consult our recently updated brochure.

Executive Summary

ACTRA's goal is to adapt and scale a cost-effective, evidence-based crime prevention program based on Cognitive Behavioral Training (CBT) to the Latin American context. We aim to do this by partnering with governments and training local organizations to integrate CBT into their programs and deliver it sustainably.

Our early results are encouraging. Across cycles, we have demonstrated strong facilitator and participant attendance and satisfaction. After refining our curriculum, we started to also observe positive before-after changes in participants’ key psychological skills — such as emotional regulation and conflict resolution skills. By December, we will finalize our second in-house pilot Randomized Control Trial [...]

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Outline:

(01:07 ) Executive Summary

(02:29 ) Why It Matters

(04:18 ) Strong Progress in Just One Year

(06:00 ) Evidence and Learning Strategy

(06:11 ) 1. Implementation at Scale

(07:47 ) 2. Learning Under Ideal Conditions

(09:20 ) 2026. Plans: Evidence, Partnerships, Scale

(10:36 ) Funding Need

(11:03 ) Why Support ACTRA Now?

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First published:

November 17th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XHM8RHzYtaj3pX5fb/actra-a-promising-crime-prevention-intervention-at-a-crucial

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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