Drug Free MHC Coalition serves the communities of Martinsville and Henry County, Virginia and through the CHILL STOPS Underage Drinking project, they will reduce underage drinking by 30% by June 2023. Alarming statistics for our community are the percentage of high school students that did drink who drank 10 or more drinks in a row in the past 30 days (26%), those who were forced to do something sexual against their will (6.7%), those who drove after drinking (7.7%). Also, alarming is that 11.9% had their first drink before age 10. The project plans to serve more than 5,000 youth and their parents/caregivers.
With 100 members from 4 high schools in the CHILL Youth Task Force committed to making positive choices and keeping their community drug free, we will work on providing education to their peers and the parents of their peers, making media campaigns and looking at the contributing factors that make underage alcohol use an issue in our community. Limiting availability of alcohol to underage youth requires parent education in a community that still sees underage drinking as a "rite of passage" and believes that providing alcohol to their teens and their teens' friends keeps them safe at home.
DFMHC has chosen the following objectives:
Objective 1: By December 2019, Drug Free MHC will have an Underage Drinking (UAD) Prevention Task Force with 30 active members to provide education and information to the community.
Objective 2: By June 30, 2020, Drug Free MHC Underage Drinking Task Force will have provided trainings for parents about the legal, safety and health hazards of underage drinking at each middle (3) and high (3) school in Martinsville and Henry and at the local Community College annually.
Objective 3: By June 30, 2023, Drug Free MHC Underage Drinking task Force will have trained at least 1,400 parents about the legal, safety and health hazards of underage drinking at middle and high school levels in Martinsville and Henry County and at the local Community College.
Objective 4: Alcohol accessibility to underage youth in Martinsville and Henry County will be decreased by 10% as evidenced by comparison of the YRBS and other social indicators to baseline data by June 30, 2020.
Objective 5: Alcohol accessibility to underage youth in Martinsville and Henry County will be decreased by 30% as evidenced by comparison of the YRBS and other social indicators to baseline data by June 30, 2023.
Objective 6: More than 500 youth will attend pro-social opportunities for adolescents as shown through process assessment by June 30, 2020.
Objective 7: by June 30, 2023, more than 2,000 youth will have attended pro-social opportunities for adolescents as shown through process assessment.