Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
The Passaic City Coalition aims to reduce alcohol and marijuana use among the youth of Passaic City, New Jersey. This will be accomplished by using the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) to increase capacity with key stakeholders for collective impact and provide technical assistance and training on the seven environmental strategies to bring about change to reduce alcohol and marijuana use among Passaic City youth. Recent county-wide needs assessment data identified the youth living in Passaic City as a particularly vulnerable subpopulation within Passaic County. In order to address youth substance misuse in Passaic City, United for Prevention in Passaic County (UPinPC), the county-wide prevention coalition servicing the 16 municipalities in Passaic County, formed a special workgroup to focus on the more than 23,000 youth living in Passaic City, 4300 of whom are enrolled in middle or high school. This workgroup, the Passaic City Coalition (PCC), will focus on three main objectives: 1. Increase community collaboration by increasing social networking and identifying gaps in data and services, 2. Increase youth knowledge about the risks and harms of alcohol and marijuana use by 10% over baseline in two years; and 3. Reduce youth alcohol and marijuana use by 10% over baseline in five years. These objectives will be achieved by addressing the specific local conditions, root causes and risk factors present in Passaic City. Located in northern New Jersey approximately ten miles out of New York City, Passaic City is home to 70,635 residents, making it the 15th largest municipality in the state. With a large population and a small, three-square mile geographic footprint, Passaic City is the tenth most densely populated municipality in the United States. One-third of Passaic City residents are under the age of 18, and a majority of its youth are Hispanic/Latino (75.4%). The poverty rate of those under 18 is 41.9%, much higher than the city's overall poverty rate of 31.9%. In addition to the typical risk factors for substance use, the youth of Passaic City are faced with significant economic hardship, dense retail availability of alcohol and tobacco, cultural factors that encourage early age, and issues that are associated with a densely-populated urban geography - poverty, crime, interpersonal violence, and gang activity. These issues will be addressed by the Passaic City Coalition through application of the seven SPF strategies to include interventions such as youth and parent education, youth engagement in data collection and prevention message development, community forums, the creation of a Youth Task Force, outreach and education with alcohol merchants, resource directory development, social media campaigns, training of youth influencers, local ordinance and policy review/development, youth leadership and communication skills development, among many other strategies. Guided by its action plan, the Passaic City Coalition aims to serve at least 2,000 middle and high school students annually.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).