Combating Rx Drug Abuse and Misuse in Rural Northwest Colorado. - Grand Futures Prevention Coalition (GFPC) is a relatively small organization serving three counties with a mission to prevent substance abuse for youth and young adults in Northwest Colorado. We only have four full-time staff members, so we rely on our Board and Advisory Council members – which make up our coalition and represent other prevention organizations, law enforcement, business leaders, mental health experts, educators, local government, diversion counselors, district attorneys and concerned parents – to help inform, guide and implement our programming. We serve approximately 52,000 people in 11 communities and are the only organization in the region with dedicated resources to directly provide a broad range of substance abuse education and awareness programs to youth. GFPC brings a strong track record of success in educating and engaging youth about substance abuse and prevention to the proposed project and the organization is well-suited to lead the coalition to accomplish the goals of the project. According to the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey results, 14.8% of youth ages 12-18 in our region have taken a prescription pill without a prescription in their lifetime, a rate is more than 11% higher than the national average of 3.5% and 1% higher than the overall state average (13.7%). Due to the geographical location of Northwest Colorado, our communities are quite isolated, with less access to health and human services programs that are more readily available to people in more populated, urban areas. It is our goal to use the CARA funding to reduce misuse and abuse of prescription drugs by 5% among middle and high school students, decrease overdose deaths in our region by 30%, and increase education for local prevention specialists and key stakeholders about best practices and resources at the state and national level in order to address this epidemic that is gripping or region. We will accomplish this by offering presentations and seminars to parents and the community, creating an educational pamphlet for pharmacists to hand out with all opioid prescriptions, adding an additional safe disposal site in each county, educating youth through the Not Prescribed curriculum, developing an online resource page for youth and their parents, creating a uniform, community-wide contract and educational presentation that discourages youth substance use as part of any school or extracurricular activity, and empowering youth to get involved and affect change through youth summits and National Drug Takeback Day events in each county. Stakeholders in our communities are passionate about implementing this work. Buy-in and support are not our biggest hurdle, funding is.
