Develop a Community Action Plan

Consult your partners and community first. What you hear will shape your approach and help you choose an evidence-informed activity from one of the ADF toolkits.

The ADF will help make sure your activity addresses local alcohol and other drug issues, is evidence-informed and can be measured through the toolkits.

Log in to the LDAT platform to find your Relationship Manager’s details, use the toolkits, create your CAP and apply for funding. The Alcohol and Other Drug Lifecycle Planner can help you plan a CAP that reduces risks and builds protective factors.

The online CAP form has five stages:

1. Confirm your local issue and target audience
2. Determine your activities
3. Plan your evaluation
4. Map your steps
5. Define your budget

Stage 1: Confirm your local issue and target audience

Local issues

The LDAT program supports activities that address:

• alcohol
• alcohol and pregnancy, including Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)
• cannabis
• crystal methamphetamine (ice)
• stimulants, including cocaine
• non-prescribed use of pharmaceutical drugs
• steroids
• other illicit drugs.

Target audience

Work out who is affected by the issue and who will benefit directly from your activity, so you can tailor the activity to them. Always consult representatives of your audience when you develop and deliver the activity.

The CAP form asks for an age group: 0–5 (parents), 6–11, 12–17, 18–30, 30–50, 50–60, 60–70, 70+ or whole of community. If your audience is more specific (for example, pregnant women or people who are unemployed) or not yet known, say so in your CAP.

Priority populations

At least one organisation in your LDAT, whether lead or partner, should represent your priority group from the first consultation through to delivery. The priority populations are:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and asexual (LGBTIQA+) people
• culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.

Resources:

• Identifying alcohol and drug issues in your community
• Community Mapping Tool: facilitator guide (PDF): questions to investigate a local priority issue with your group and turn the answers into an evidence-informed solution.

Stage 2: Determine your activities

Choose an activity that has been shown to prevent or reduce alcohol and other drug harm. This includes activities:

• taken directly from an ADF toolkit
• supported by evidence-informed information, such as a parent education session
• backed by an evaluation plan to measure their impact.

Check the activity is a good fit:

• Does your LDAT have the capacity to carry out the activity?
• Do you have the people, money and materials, or can you get them?
• What expertise does your group have, and who could you partner with for extra skills and knowledge?
• What are your community’s strengths and challenges around alcohol and other drugs, and how can you build on partners’ strengths and manage the challenges?

Resources: Community consultation, VicHealth Partnerships Analysis Tool

Stage 3: Plan your evaluation

Evaluation shows whether your activity worked, helps you share your successes and report your outcomes, and tells you what to improve next time.

This section covers Prevention CAPs (Type 2). Engagement CAPs (Type 1) follow a similar process, with some differences explained in the Community engagement and mobilisation toolkit.

Choose at least one ADF-recommended Measurable Activity from your toolkit. A Measurable Activity:

• is designed by your LDAT, or by an AOD health practitioner your LDAT has engaged for the CAP. If an external partner helps deliver it, your LDAT is still there to support them.
• gives participants information or ideas that support harm reduction, and sets aside time to collect short-term impact data from them afterwards, such as their knowledge about alcohol and other drug harms.

Public events or activities run outside the LDAT program, such as classes, meet-ups or training, don’t count.

For each Measurable Activity, choose at least two ADF-recommended process measures and two impact measures. Establish your measures explains the difference. The full list is in the LDAT Evaluation Measures Guide on the LDAT platform, and the CAP form takes you through the options for your toolkit. For more on building a strong evaluation plan, see the LDAT evaluation tools.

Stage 4: Map your steps

List the tasks needed to deliver your activity, such as more consultation, advertising, recruiting participants, training and event management. For each step, add who is responsible and the start and finish dates. Each toolkit outlines the main steps and resources.

Stage 5: Define your budget

You and your partners will need to consider all your income and expenditure.

Fill in the budget table to show what the funding will pay for. This shows that your CAP is value for money, that planned spending is within the funding guidelines, and that you’re using partners, in-kind support and other grants to build sustainability. The table is a guide only, so add rows or columns if you need to, for example for several sources of in-kind support.

Budget tips

• catering costs on average up to $15 per head
• include staffing: the hours needed and the cost per hour per person
• itemise and justify any capital expense over $500 (you can add this as an attachment)
• don’t include administration or overhead fees
• attach a more detailed budget in the Attachments tab, if you have one.

Your Relationship Manager will guide you as you develop your CAP, so the activity meets your community’s needs. Develop and submit your CAP on the LDAT platform. Once it’s approved, deliver your activities, collecting your success measures and recording spending as you go. See Deliver your Community Action Plan.

These sites have alcohol and other drug data, and data on risk and protective factors, for each state and territory, to help you prepare your CAP.

• National: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: alcohol overview, .id community profiles, My School
• New South Wales: NSW Health
• Queensland: Queensland Health: public health
• Northern Territory: NT Health, NTcommunity: alcohol, drugs and other dependencies services
• Western Australia: WA Health, Western Australian Community Impact Hub
• South Australia: Wellbeing SA: South Australian population health data
• Victoria: VicHealth
• Tasmania: Primary Health Tasmania, Primary Health Tasmania: community health checks

Last reviewed: 9 October 2026