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Communities That Care Wins National Award! |
Click Here for a Summary of Progress Toward Communities That Care Goals
Prevention works. It's working here. The Communities That Care Coalition has been selected as the "Coalition of the Year" by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) because of the dramatic reductions in teen substance use that the Coalition has helped to effect. CADCA is a membership organization of over 5,000 anti-drug coalitions, each working to make their community safe, healthy, and drug-free. The Communities That Care Coalition was selected from a nationally competitive pool of nominees.
The Got Outcomes! Coalition of the Year awards recognize coalitions that have successfully reduced substance abuse in their communities through evidence-based programs, policies or strategies. Applicants undergo a rigorous review process and winners are judged by a panel of expert coalition leaders.
"These organizations represent the best of the best, and exemplify the excellent work that coalitions are doing around the country to prevent and reduce drug use in their communities," said General Arthur T. Dean, CADCA's Chairman and CEO, of Got Outcomes! Award recipients.
Communities That Care Coalittion members will be given free registration, travel and lodging at CADCA's National Leadership Forum, and the Coalition will receive promotion in CADCA publications and technical assistance to market the Coalition's activities. More importantly, the recognition can help leverage additonal resources - including money, support, and participation - for the Coalition's work.
The Communities That Care Coalition (which is co-hosted by The Community Coalition for Teens and Community Action) was formed in 2002 on the premise that a community that works together to apply positive, research-based strategies effectively reduces and prevents teen substance abuse and other risky behaviors. The Coalition has conducted a rigorous, community-wide strategic planning process, selected priority risk and protective factors for the community to address, formed four active workgroups, and selected and implemented research-based programs and practices to achieve the Coalition's goals. Through strong participation of many different agencies throughout the community, the Coalition has met with tremendous success in achieving its goals so far, as the attached graph demonstrates (to view the graph, click on the link at the top of this page).
As shown in the attached graph, five of the Coalition's six priority risk and protective factors (including community, family, and school rewards for teens' positive involvement; community laws and norms that support teen substance use; and parental attitudes that support teen substance use) have improved considerably among 8th graders between 2003 and 2006, and all four of the Coalition's outcome goals (including alcohol use, cigarette use, marijuana use, and binge drinking) dropped precipitously in the same three years. When asked about these results, Kat Allen, one of the Coalition's two Co-Chairs, said, "We've looked very carefully at the data, and the declines in teen substance use can't be explained by changes in family income; by differences in gender, school enrollment, or grade distribution from year to year; by a "cohort effect"; or by survey methodology. And while teen substane use is going down around the country, Franklin County declines far outpace the rest of the nation. In other words, it appears that something very right is happening in Franklin County." Allen added that the 2007 Teen Health Survey results are due to be released shortly, and that the survey shows even further declines across the board in teen substance use.
Coalition Co-Chair Sara Cummings quoted the Coalition's new tagline: "Prevention works. It's working here!" which she said is validated by the CADCA Coalition of the Year award. "We're honored to be receiving this kind of national recognition, and elighted to be seeing such a big decrease in teen drug and alcohol use. This didn't happen by accident, and the entire community deserves credit," said Cummings.
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