Tuesday, May 13, 2025
5/13/2025
Drug Free Communities Grant - The Portsmouth Town School District in cooperation with the Portsmouth Prevention Coalition is applying for the DFC 2018 grant as a result of an intensive three separate years of Substance Abuse Use Needs Assessments that have been conducted in 2013, 2014 and 2016. These Needs Assessments included student surveys of grades 7- 12 and identified local conditions that contributed to the adolescent substance abuse issues. This is the story of how the community of Portsmouth, RI, located on Aquidneck Island, has gathered qualitative and quantitative data in a collaborative process incorporating the fundamental aspects of the Strategic Prevention Framework and the Seven Strategies for Change to build a true collaborative effort to address the issues we have discovered. Our application lays out in detail our history as a coalition for over 29 years, our rebuilding efforts and current status and the steps we have taken to strengthen our coalition and get our town to acknowledge the problems we identified. We have described our reliance on sound data and the help of evaluation to make our case to the public and overcome roadblocks and ways to build the strength of our coalition. We have described in detail our methods of assessment and data collection and presented that information throughout our community. We’ve found partners in our local press venues and within the community as a result of that outreach and hope to build upon it with the addition of an active student movement within the schools. Student use of alcohol and marijuana as the most pressing issues in Portsmouth but tobacco and non-medical use of prescription drugs were also included in our data. Those issues are driven by perceptions of risk and harm, parental disapproval, which was very high, and peer disapproval, lifetime, 30 day use and age of onset. So with the data and collaboration of interested community partners we have devised a 12-month action plan in detail to build and measure the capacity of our coalition and community, and to decrease the use of alcohol and marijuana by our 7-12 grade student population. That plan is built with the full use of our coalition members and community with youth as partners in our efforts. Our community has shown overwhelming support to meet our obligations of matching resources to support a well designed budget that can build our abilities to successfully implement and efficiently monitor our effectiveness with this plan. We have seen how community collaboration can bring about measurable change and bring down substance abuse rates amongst our youth if we work together using tools that have been proven to bring about community level change.
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).