Saturday, May 18, 2024
5/18/2024
This proposal will be implemented within Douglas County, Colorado, the seventh most populated county in the State of Colorado. The County includes five incorporated municipalities and a highly populated unincorporated area. The three largest municipalities each have their own police department and fire protection district, while the entire county is served by one school district and one library system. Douglas County School District (DCSD) is the third largest school district in Colorado, with 89 schools and over 68,000 students. Douglas County is primarily White Non-Hispanic (82.6%) with a growing population of color. The county population includes several communities experiencing inequities, including people experiencing homelessness, those identifying as LGTBQ+, and families living in poverty and/or without health insurance. This project will serve the youth of Douglas County with a goal of reducing youth and young adult use of alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, and prescription drugs and promoting youth protective factors. Emphasis will be placed on communities most at-need in the county, which include the major municipalities and unincorporated areas. The populations impacted will be adolescents ages 9-20 with an emphasis on developing Douglas County School District and the juvenile justice system infrastructures to better serve adolescents who are using substances and assessed to be high-risk for substance use and/or mental illness. High youth substance use rates and identified gaps make Douglas County one of critically high need, and the existing community assets and collaborations are an ideal building block for continued prevention work. Tri-County Health Department (TCHD) and Douglas County School District (DCSD) will partner to lead this project. TCHD will serve as the fiscal agent and provide all oversight to the SPF process. TCHD will sub-contract with DCSD to be the community face of the coalition. This is a model TCHD has used successfully for many years to ensure efforts are truly community-led. Together TCHD and DCSD will implement required activities to achieve goals and objectives through the use of community-based processes and evidence-based interventions. TCHD and DCSD will utilize community coalition building strategies to advance substance abuse prevention efforts across the community by convening a diverse group of stakeholders across sectors to collaborate through the coalition. This project will use the Strategic Prevention Framework to identify and select comprehensive, data-driven substance abuse prevention strategies to achieve goals and objectives. The SPF will be the model for all coalition activities and will guide the coalition through building capacity, assessing the community, and planning, implementing, and evaluation strategies. This project will build upon existing prevention capacity and grow collaboration across a diverse set of community agencies and stakeholders in Douglas County with the intended outcome of reducing underage use of alcohol, marijuana, vaping products, and prescription drugs while increasing youth protective factors.
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).
