# Presentation: 788343

## Tying it All Together

Jennifer Husmann, Project Coordinator
jhusmann@asac.us

- Tying it All Together
- Jennifer Husmann, Project Coordinator
- jhusmann@asac.us

## Collaborative Project to start

-  4 schools districts in each of the two counties
- Anamosa – LEA in Jones County 2004 Grantee
- Subcontracted Area Substance Abuse Council (ASAC), community treatment/prevention agency, U of I Consortium on Research and Prevention, evaluators
- 3 other districts- Monticello, Midland, and Olin

**Notes:**
Two bigger and two smaller districts in each county/ each grant.  Each grant serving approximately 1800 students- 6th – 12th. 

## Collaborative cont.

- Mount Vernon- LEA in Linn County 2007 Grantee
- Also subcontracted ASAC, U of I Consortium and
- 3 other districts- Center Point-Urbana, Central City and Springville

## Comprehensive Project

- Each grantee have 5 model programs and substance abuse counseling
- Both have Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol (CMCA), LifeSkills Training, Project Toward No Drug Abuse (TND), and Leadership and Resiliency Program (LRP)
- Project Alert and Reconnecting Youth are also used in some of the school districts
-  Community efforts, Universal education for 6th -9th, H.S. Intervention strategies, & Assessment/Counseling

## American Gothic Revisited: An Alcohol Reduction Grant

-  Reconnecting Youth

- TND

- LRP

- CMCA

- Counseling

- Lifeskills

## Superintendents on Board

- Local Superintendents work together on many initiatives.
- Data spurred Jones County Superintendents into knowing they had to do something.
- Project Coordinator met regularly with Project Director, now working in same building.

**Notes:**
Carol Lensing was in contact with ASAC and local AEA helped develop grant.
Lucky to have 3 out of 4 of the Superintendents here with us this week.  Jeff Schwiebert is our Project Director and Superintendent of Mount Vernon School District, and our 2 new Superintendents are both here too- Terry Rhinehart from Springiville and John Dotson from Central City.  Superintendents are very connected to the community so really help to get the word out about our efforts- School boards, Chambers, City Councils, County Supervisors, local Representatives and Senators, etc.  (Picture of Dale, any of Carol?)

## Slide 7

## Superintendents Importance

- All 4 Superintendents were on each Oversight Committee.
- Successful community efforts helped greatly with Superintendents involvement- recruited others.
- Success of this model – led to replicating in other places.

## All sectors involved -- grassroots community efforts

- CMCA is very good model for getting a broad range of support with the underage drinking issue.
- Separate CMCA groups and unique, yet similar action plans for each district

**Notes:**
Ambulance, hospital news, Drs., Fire Dept., All of these connections help tie the community and school efforts together for the youth.  At the beginning we used these meetings to share about all aspects of the grant- speaking at many organizations, telling them about all pieces- the programs for all their kids, the programs for more at risk and asking them to refer students to counseling that they knew needed help, also asking them to consider helping with the community effort in any way they could- even if that meant just in their own home, business, church, civic group, etc.

## Slide 10

## Sectors and grassroots cont.

- Law enforcement- leaders in coalitions’ work
- Parents, grandparents
- Youth, youth serving organizations, civic groups,
- Teachers, School Board members, administrators
- Business leaders, elected officials, concerned citizens
- Recovering persons, health workers, etc.

## Assessment efforts key to build effective Action Plan

- Besides existing “Use” data, trends- Iowa Youth Survey
- Our own brand new  “Use” data- some positive!
- One-on-ones to determine themes of access, ideas, barriers, self-interest, willingness to help, and skills.

**Notes:**
Involving as many people in as many ways as possible to find out their thoughts really helps build community support.  Community Readiness showed us a couple different things.  In Jones County we used the MIPH and found we really needed to build off the one strength– that the community believed there was too much access to alcohol.  We found that they really didn’t believe that prevention could work and that they really didn’t know if there was a problem.  The analyists gave us great ideas of writing articles reminding the community of the data and of the potential dangers – not just the car accidents, but alcoholism, fights, falls, burns, alcohol poisoning, teenage pregnancy and STDs, school drop outs, vandelism, etc.  We did this as a county because there are only those 4 districts in the county.  In Linn, each school is a little more separate because there are at least 3 other rural districts, plus the larger metropolitan area school districts of Cedar Rapids and Marion.  So we are handling each of these separately with the Community Readiness data.  We are finding the level of readiness through the Tri-Ethnic surveys.  Trying to make sure that the weaker domains like Leadership or Knowledge of the Issue, are addressed first so that the community is ready for the strategies in the next level of readiness– like hosting our own events--  Town Hall Meetings in March/April.  Data and stories from law, ambulance, etc. also remind people of the need.   At the same time, we focus on the positive that lets people know that things can change and especially the youth know that Most people are not using!!!  The Truth. (Pictures of forums)  

## Assessment cont.

- Focus groups to get at the environmental climate- we used the Community Alcohol Personality Survey- FACE Project- top problems and contributing factors- ideas of where to focus in the future
- Community Readiness- Key!  Couple sources:  MIPH and Tri-Ethnic – strengths, weaknesses, first steps ....

## Slide 14

##  Leadership and Resiliency Program

- This program for at risk high school students gets them highly involved in the community!
- Teachers, prevention specialists, substance abuse counselor, parents & community volunteers  can help.
- Besides weekly process groups, LRP has two other main components that go out into the community:

**Notes:**
Some donations from businesses have been made for mask making materials or good deals on activities.  The kids also find out there are creative and inexpensive things to do right in their area to have fun instead of using substances and other destructive and dangerous activities.  (Show pictures here of LRP’s walls, other pictures I can find.

## LRP components cont.

- Adventure activities using local _resources_ for positive safe risk-taking experiences and
- Service projects to learn compassion and internal conflict through serving their area’s animals, children, elderly, sick, poor, taking care of nature, or beautifying their community, etc.
- Reconnecting Youth has similar goals.

**Notes:**
I’m just learning about RY!

## Slide 17

**Notes:**
Monticello LRP painting a mural on an ugly side of a building down town.  Community Beautification.

## Slide 18

**Notes:**
Angel flying!!!

## Tying it all together- Counseling

- Unique aspect of our grant
- One or two counselors serving 2 to 4 school districts
- Close relationship with Juvenile Court
- Community “buy-in” varied, some places invaluable, other places still working on the image-- readiness differs from community to community.

## Some improvements made

- Iowa Youth Survey showed improvement- evaluators speculate our efforts contributed to that
- Grant data showed mostly successful progress within the model programs, and all together- GPRA measures
- Still much to do- areas we missed- more for parents- we tried to do some with CMCA and other model programs- Parent Nights, Parent to Parent Handbook, etc., Parent Involvement, but more Parent Education is needed.

**Notes:**
From 52 down to 28 percent binge drinking in most recent IYS.  Iowa is high for high school binge drinking in Nation.  

## Lessons learned, continued needs

- We did increase Youth involvement and made that a part of the new grant- Prevention specialists giving technical assistance to help to get youth advocacy groups going and aid in the CMCA efforts right away.
- (One big media strategy the youth developed this year was a TV Public Service Announcement- totally their idea-show you in a minute!)
- All older teens need continued prevention education as they graduate and leave for college and life on their own.

## Tying it together with Evaluation and Sustainability 

- Improving evaluation efforts of the environmental and policy strategies of CMCA through “access” questions on pre and post-tests.
- Getting a snapshot at the beginning and end of project for community to see the current data to help evaluate efforts.
- Working on academic and resiliency data for LRP to help sell it to school boards and sponsors as grant ends.

## Evaluation and Sustainability cont.

- Started right away with school staff leading the programs, rather than waiting until the second year.
- Training staff to be trainers if possible.
- With experience and early training moving more quickly to Action and looking at future funding sources early on.

## Looking to replicate in surrounding communities.

- Working with other nearby coalitions and entities on the county and state level, we are collaborating on media campaigns, training opportunities, and legislative efforts.
- We have gleaned ideas from others and certainly want to share our ideas with you!
- “I will not disappoint....”    PSA

**Notes:**
Show 30 second commercial.

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