Norwich Prevention Council DFC project for drug prevention initiatives and coalition development - The Norwich Prevention Council (NPC) was formed 14 years ago in 2006, and includes sector members who’ve come together to address the substance abuse consumption and consequence issues in Norwich. The mission statement of the Norwich Prevention Council is to prevent risky behavior among Norwich youth by building local capacity to provide programs and opportunities for youth: promote education and training to reduce tobacco, alcohol, prescription drug use and other risky behaviors. Our coalition will target efforts to impact underage drinking and marijuana use by our youth under 18 within our community.
The strengths of the coalition include a very diverse number of key leaders and community members. These leaders include town government, law enforcement, regional schools, hospitals, emergency medical and response services, civic organizations, and cultural groups. Norwich is a community of 39,136 residents (Census, 2018), with 21.4% of the community under 18 years of age. We will target our prevention strategies towards these 8,375 individuals under 18, while understanding our environmental approaches will have secondary impacts on the community as a whole. Our community diversity has led to opportunities to include targeted and culturally responsive prevention strategies. Various faith communities, including both Hispanic and Haitian communities were involved.
Our community needs assessment demonstrates that the Norwich community’s social norms (the perceptions parents and youth have regarding alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs) enable and encourage youth substance use. Depending on the substance, between 15 and 20% of parents report lifetime use of an illegal drug, and about 5% report using in the past 30 days (Norwich Community Survey 2017). Youth focus groups conducted in 2019 produced youth comments such as “Yes! Parents, adults, and friends use. Parents don’t care. If they use it, so can the kids.” and “My family uses it (marijuana). My whole house sometimes smells”. When asked where kids get alcohol or marijuana, including vape devices for marijuana, our youth report from friends, siblings, adults and parents, and on-line purchases for vape devices. (Youth Focus Groups 2019)
Youth were asked about their perception of their parents' disapproval of their use of alcohol and marijuana. About 27% of youth report that their parents think it would be only a little wrong or not wrong at all for them to smoke marijuana and 29% reported think it would be only a little wrong or not wrong at all for them to drink 1 or 2 alcoholic beverages nearly every day. (2017 SERAC Youth Core Survey)
When asked why they, or their parents think this drug use is okay, youth report that while alcohol can be harmful, marijuana is not harmful (Focus Groups 2019). Our 2017 community survey demonstrates that some parents have similar attitudes. This data led us to the conclusion that low perception of risk and harm from substance abuse is a significant root cause to our community’s youth substance abuse problems.
Norwich youth live in a community where drug overdose deaths have continued to increase, almost doubling from 2015 to 2017 from 15 to 29 opioid related deaths, which has affected many of our youth and families. Additionally, Norwich youth (aged 10-17) DUI arrests increased 20% from 2014-2016 and Norwich youth drug arrest rates were significantly higher than the state of Connecticut rates in 2016 at 21per 10,000 for Norwich compared to 16 per 10,000 for the state. (CT State Epidemiologic and Outcomes Workgroup or SEOW).
Acknowledging these issues that have primary, secondary and tertiary impacts on our youth, we will work to: increase community collaboration, coordination, and community based networking in order to prevent and reduce youth substance use.
