Wednesday, January 15, 2025
1/15/2025
Coalition for McKinney Drug Free Youth (CMDFY) serves McKinney, Texas, a rapidly growing community of 214,000 residents, located 40 miles north of Dallas. The goals are to strengthen collaboration among CMDFYs partner organizations to prevent and reduce youth substance use, reduce substance use among youth over time, and promote factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse. Most of the population identifies as white non-Hispanic (64.4%) while 11.7% are black non-Hispanic and 12.0% are Asian non-Hispanic. Additionally, 17.2% of the McKinney population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Approximately one in three high school students at McKinney High School was economically disadvantaged, the highest percentage in Collin County in 2022, according to the Texas Education Agency. Additionally, over 35% of all McKinney ISD students qualify as economically disadvantaged and are eligible for free or reduced-price meals for the 2023-2024 school year. The homeless population of McKinney has increased from 42 in 2019 to 223 in 2023 according to Point-In-Time Census Report data. The public-school system is the McKinney Independent School District has over 24,500 attending one of the 20 elementary schools, five middle schools or three high schools. The coalition will achieve its goals, strategies, and objectives by the following: Goal one: Establish and strengthen collaboration among community stakeholders and organizations to address youth substance use. Goal two: Reduce substance use among youth and, over time, reduce substance use among adults by addressing the factors in a community that increases the risk of substance use and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance use. The number of people to be served annually is 100,000 and 500,000 throughout the lifetime of the project. The project will benefit the community and youth by strengthening community collaboration and reducing youth substance use. The mission of the Coalition for McKinney Drug Free Youth is to reduce youth substance misuse of alcohol and opioids, including fentanyl, throughout McKinney, by partnering with diverse community representatives to achieve long-lasting, measurable change. The organization actively facilitates the Seven Strategies for Community-Level Change. First, the coalition provides relevant and up-to-date information to community members in-person through community meetings and town hall presentations with schools and parents. The organization also enhances the skills of parents, youth, and other organizations involved in reducing substance use through parenting classes and workshops about life skills, goal-setting, and Narcan use. Additionally, the coalition partners with community organizations to increase opportunities for extracurricular activities like athletic events. The organization improves the connections between services provided by local substance use governmental agencies and healthcare professionals by coordinating efforts and sharing resources and strategies at regular meetings. The coalition also incentivizes positive practices through our Red Ribbon “Take the Pledge” event each fall and in the spring, “Project Graduation” to encourage the students to be drug free. The organization changes physical design to reduce youth substance use by working with local volunteer sectors to clean up and maintain public spaces including the local skate park and youth sports fields. Finally, the coalition works with local healthcare professionals and schools to educate and inform community members about changing policies regarding substance use.
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).