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We are now hiring CTC Coordinators!
The Communities That Care Coalition, serving Franklin County and the North Quabbin region, is seeking those interested in serving as work group and committee co-chairs. Duties include chairing meetings, attending council meetings, recruiting members, and working to further the goals of the Coalition. Funding for approximately 3 two-hour meetings a month is provided through June 30, 2011. Click here for a full job description, and here for an application.
Applications are due May 21, 2010.
The Communities That Care (CTC) Coalition started in 2002 as a group of concerned community members in Franklin County interested in addressing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among youth.
The CTC Coalition now has 45 active members from varied sectors in the community and has already been key to bringing in almost $500,000 of federal and state revenue into the county, with contracts for an additional $900,000. Oversight is provided by the CTC Coordinating Council that includes representation from each of the following community sectors: local government, business, schools, law enforcement, faith-based organizations, hospital, mental health providers, parent educators, after-school programs, and early child care & education. Specific work groups were created to coordinate the effort and to develop and implement specific strategies. These work groups include:
- Community Norms: Ensuring that laws, norms, and practices in the community discourage underage use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.
- Funding and Strategies Team (FAST): Coordinating the work group planning, monitoring the implementation of the Community Action Plan, and identifying funding for the strategies and working with community organizations to fund new and existing programs.
- Parent Education: Providing information and education to all parents on ways to reduce the likelihood that their children use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.
- Youth Development and Recognition: Promoting recognition and support for positive involvement by young people in their families, schools, and the community.
- Youth Prevention Education: Working with school and youth serving organizations to ensure that prevention education is provided at all ages.
Franklin County will be a place where schools, parents, and the community work together to strengthen young people’s capacity to resist using alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs.
This vision will be achieved by the following outcomes:
- Reduce youth substance abuse in Franklin County
- Delay the average age at which youth initiate alcohol, tobacco and other drug use
- Involve the community, schools and families in efforts to reduce substance abuse by youth
- Increase opportunities for positive youth involvement and recognition in our communities, schools and families.
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The CTC Youth Survey and
Community Action Plan |
In April 2003, the Communities That Care (CTC) Youth Survey was administered with coordination by the Community Coalition for Teens, to 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in five Franklin County school districts (Frontier, Gill-Montague, Greenfield, Mohawk, and Pioneer). The survey was repeated in 2006, and will be repeated again in 2009 to provide a comparison with the 2003 "baseline" levels.
This survey provides a profile of risk and protective factors reported by youth. Risk and Protective Factors are conditions in the community, family, school and individual's environments that are known to increase or decrease the likelihood a young person will engage in one or more problem behaviors.
After the first survey, The Risk and Protective Factor Work Group reviewed Franklin County youth's risk and protective factors in comparison to state and national averages for similar communities to determine which factors to prioritize. The CTC Coalition identified the following:
PRIORITIZED RISK FACTORS:
- Community Laws & Norms favorable toward alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use
- Family Management Problems
- Favorable parental attitudes and involvement in problem behaviors
PRIORITIZED PROTECTIVE FACTOR:
- Rewards for positive involvement in community, schools, and family
RESOURCES AND GAPS:
The Resources and Strengths Assessment Work Group identified the following gaps related to the priority risk and protective factors:
- There are no countrywide efforts in place to address community laws and norms favorable toward ATOD use. Additional capacity is necessary in order to establish social norms marketing - and other environmental strategies - comprehensively in Franklin County.
- There are a number of programs across the county that offer some parent education and support, but no one is offering a comprehensive research-based program for parents to address the risk factors of poor family supervision or favorable attitudes toward ATOD use.
- Most programs provide recognition of youth for positive involvement or accomplishments, but agree they could increase their efforts. There is apparently a gap between the recognition that programs and schools provide and the perspectives reported by teens that there was not much recognition for their positive involvement.
STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS:
The CTC Coalition approved strategies developed by the work groups to address the priority risk and protective factors. The strategies were developed based on the review of existing community resources and the investigation of “research-based” programs and strategies that have been shown to be effective in reducing risk and enhancing protective factors. The CTC Coalition identified strategies in the following four areas:
Community laws and norms related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug availability and use.
Strategies:
- Conduct compliance checks to ensure that retailers do not sell alcohol to minors.
- Provide alcohol beverage server training to retailers.
- Conduct shoulder tap surveys to ensure that adults do not buy alcohol for minors.
- Provide education on social host liability laws regarding legal responsibilities and consequences of serving alcohol in the home.
- Conduct public awareness campaign.
- Review town/school ATOD policies.
Education for parents of elementary, middle and high school aged youth.
Strategies:
- Provide "research-based" parent education to parents of middle school age youth.
- Provide "research-based" parent education to parents of high school age youth.
Recognition of youth through family, school and community efforts.
Strategies:
- Promote parental recognition of youth.
- Promote community-based recognition efforts.
- Promote youth recognition in schools.
- Promote increased communication between schools, community and parents.
Comprehensive health and prevention education for youth.
Strategies:
- Support "research-based" youth prevention education in schools.
- Support "research-based" youth prevention education in the community.
- Facilitate coordination of youth prevention education in schools and communities.
OUTCOMES:
The CTC Coalition developed specific outcomes to address the problem behaviors and risk and protective factors identified. Goals include reducing problem behaviors and risk factors by 10%, and increasing protective factors by 10%. To read our most recent Community Action Plan, click here.
EVALUATION AND SUSTAINABILITY PLANS
The CTC Coalition will conduct an evaluation at both the program and community levels. Program level evaluation will measure program implementation success. Outcome evaluation will be conducted to measure the program’s effects on risk and protective factors and, where relevant, alcohol, tobacco and other drug use. An evaluation of the overall impact of the strategies will measure changes in youth ATOD use on a community-wide basis. The CTC Coalition also has specific plans for maintaining momentum and sustaining the coalition
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For more information, contact: |
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Polly Prunuske, co-chair
Community Action
393 Main Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
413.475.1797
pprunuske@communityaction.us |
Kat Allen, co-chair
Community Coalition for Teens
278 Main Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
413.774.1194 x115
teens@frcog.org |
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