The purpose of this exercise is to get you to focus on the consequences of substance use in your community and the consumption patterns that might be a priority. This will lay the foundation for your strategic plan. Review Previous Needs and Resource Assessments. You may also want to gather and review any previous needs assessments that have been conducted in your state or community over the last five years that might be relevant to substance abuse prevention efforts. You should identify the aspects relevant to substance abuse prevention, particularly to consumption patterns that have been identified as a priority by your state agency, and the related negative consequences. What you find will help shape your subsequent data collection efforts. Appendix C provides a table to help you compile pertinent findings from the prior assessments. Data Sources You may want to ask around about gaining access to local sources of information. These can include (but are not limited to): Police reports; School incident and discipline reports; Court records; Medical examiner data; Hospital discharge data; and Emergency Department (EDED/ER) data. All these sources of information have positives and negatives. Many are not computerized and nearly all will raise privacy concerns. You may have to reach agreements with individuals, organizations, school boards or agencies in order to gain access to these data. However, such records can be rich sources of information that may help you pinpoint substance misuse and related consequences in your community. For example, obtaining the number of ED/ER visits that involved the non-medical use of prescription drugs would be an appropriate and data-driven way to identify whether the misuse of prescription drugs is a concern in your community. It might be a good idea to invite individuals who represent these local data sources to participate on your assessment committee and provide insight about interpreting the information. In addition, your state’s Epidemiologist, SEOW chair or senior public health officials should be able to advise you on how to best gain access to and analyze these local data. Identify Intervening Variables and Contributing Factors By now you have probably come to the conclusion that the data you have reviewed thus far is not enough to give you the whole picture. The next phase of a needs assessment asks you to begin to think about intervening variables. This will build upon what you have learned and help focus further information gathering efforts. Once you have examined available data and considered the assessments that have been conducted in your community, stop and review what you have learned thus far.
Figure 4: Planning with Capacity Components Planning for Implementation Developing Action Steps to Achieve Your Goals Once you know what strategies and capacity-building activities you need to achieve your goals and objectives, you should create an action plan to implement your strategies and activities. A common format for an action plan is: Sample Action Plan Format Goal(s) Objectives Prevention Activities and Capacity Building Activities Timeline Who is Responsible? Measures Creating a Sustainability Plan An important component of the Strategic Prevention Framework is the development of a strategy to sustain policies, program and practices. SPF SIG does not guarantee funding for you to implement evidence-based strategies. So, now that you know what you plan to do and when, how do you plan to support it in the future? Sample Sustainability Plan Format Planned Activities/Strategies (from your Action Plan) Estimated Level of Funding Necessary Potential Funding Sources Steps to Secure Funding Who is Responsible? As part of sustainability, you may want to consider obtaining memoranda of understanding between your coalition and important collaborators such as schools or law enforcement departments. The purpose of this requirement is to help leverage commitments from partners to ensure that components of the strategic plan are acted upon. A memorandum of understanding, also known as a memorandum of agreement, is not a legal document and is not enforceable in court. “Memoranda of agreement are usually used to clarify and/or specify the terms of a cooperative or collaborative arrangement involving two or more organizations. They may have to do, for example, with sharing space, with working together
Underage Drinking Youth believe that alcohol is easy to obtain from liquor licensees in the community (Access & Availability) Liquor licensees do not believe they will be caught selling alcohol to minors Enhance knowledge and of liquor licensee employees Responsible Beverage Server/Seller Trainings (Environmental) Measure: Number of RBS trainings. Target: Increase number of RBS trainings held from X to Y in year 1, as measured by internal record keeping. Liquor licensees will refuse to minors Youth age years old will perceive that alcohol is difficult to obtain as measured by MIHYS. Target: Reduce Alcohol Use by 15% among 12 to 18 year population in Local Service Area. (2020). Youth ages 12 to 18 believe they will be caught by their parents. Youth do not believe they will be caught drinking alcohol by parents (Enforcement and/or Perception of Risk Parents are not aware of underage drinking and what they can do to prevent it. Increase parent’s knowledge and use of practices to monitor their child’s use of alcohol Parent Media Campaign – Monitoring Tips/Parent Meet-Ups. (Information Dissemination/Education) Increase the number of parents who learn what they can do to monitor their child’s behavior. Parents will increase their monitoring of youth around alcohol use as