Community-Based Coalition Enhancement Grants to Address Local Drug Crises - The Barry County Substance Abuse Task Force (SATF) proposes to reduce the rates of youth use of opioids in Barry County, Michigan--a rural community of 59,702 residents in West Michigan. The SATF will work collaboratively with its community partners to reduce youth access to opioids, while changing community norms and practices relative to opioid use.
The SATF began in 2004 and has a strong collaborative approach to addressing and preventing substance abuse concerns in the community. The SATF and its members will continue working together to enhance and expand prevention messages, activities, and initiatives to positively impact Barry County. The SATF will continue to utilize the Strategic Prevention Framework as we employ multiple strategies across multiple sectors to bring change to our community regarding opioids.
The goals of the SATF are to 1) Strengthen collaboration in the community to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth, and 2) Reduce substance abuse among youth in Barry County, Michigan, and over time, among adults. The mission of the Barry County Substance Abuse Task Force is to prevent, reduce, and address the consequences of existing and emerging substance use and abuse issues through collaborative efforts for youth and adults in our community.
The SATF will achieve its goals by implementing these strategies:
1) Strengthening community partnerships and engaging all sectors of the community to increase awareness of the opioid issues in Barry County, while also working to reduce youth access to and use of opioids.
2) Collection of community data indicators, needs assessments, and youth data (including core measures) to guide strategic planning designed to prevent youth use of opioids.
3) Reducing youth access to opioids through increased community awareness and education with youth, parents, schools, health care providers, and other community partners, as well as increased access to proper medicine disposal and use of prescription monitoring systems.
4) Changing norms and practices in the community to ensure that youth access to and use of opioids is less likely to occur.
