. The coalition’s goal is to decrease underage drinking, marijuana use and prescription drug use by reducing availability and changing community and parent norms regarding youth substance use. The coalition follows the Strategic Prevention Framework to assess needs, build capacity, create action plans, implement strategies and evaluate plans. The funding from the DFC grant would allow for an expansion of current activities and strategies being utilized by the ASAP coalition. The ASAP coalition serves entire population of Tioga County with specific focus on the parents, youth age 12-20 and middle and high schools. Strategies are designed to provide information, build skills, provide support to youth, parents and schools. In addition, the coalition designs strategies to and reduce access to alcohol and drugs, change consequences related to youth drug and alcohol use and to modify school and municipal policies related to youth drug and alcohol use.
The approach proposed in this project will further enhance our successes in creating community level change in regards to underage drinking, youth marijuana use and prescription drug use in several ways. Our focus will continue to be on decreasing availability, decreasing social acceptance of youth drug and alcohol use and increasing consequences regarding underage drinking and marijuana use. We will work with local law enforcement to expand our party patrols, fake ID details, compliance checks and increase the number of Responsible Beverage Server trainings and attendees. We will provide information through workshops, forums, websites and webinar for parents regarding current drug use and prevention. We will work with local municipalities to create new policies related to compliance checks and social hosting. We will also create social marketing campaigns designed to educate parents and the general community on the consequences of underage drinking, marijuana use and prescription drug use. Social norms marketing principals will be used with middle, high school and college students to show the real norms around underage drinking and marijuana versus the perceived norms. We will continue to work closely with a county agencies and organizations including Trinity, Tioga County Department of Health as well as our regional prevention center- Finger Lakes Prevention Resource Center to design and implement strategies. .
