Thursday, June 5, 2025
6/5/2025
Taos Pueblo Awareness Coalition Team (TPACT) - The Taos Pueblo Awareness Coalition Team (TPACT) is a Drug-Free Communities (DFC) mentee coalition on the Taos Pueblo tribal reservation in New Mexico working to revitalize our community’s core values and prevent youth substance use and abuse. The coalition envisions Taos Pueblo as the thriving community our ancestors prayed for and our children deserve. Our target service population are youth members of the Taos Pueblo tribe. Taos Pueblo is home to an estimated 1,900 tribal members living on the reservation, out of approximately 2,604 enrolled tribal members. There is about 523 youth under the age of 19, not counting the children eligible for enrollment. Taos Pueblo has unique characteristics related to our geography, political status as a sovereign nation, traditions, and poverty, different from the neighboring Town of Taos requiring special attention and total focus beyond the scope of Taos Alive, our DFC coalition mentor. TPACT has selected alcohol and opioids as the two substances to address in the first grant year. According to the 2017 Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (YRRS), 30.7% of Taos Pueblo youth respondents reported using alcohol, higher than statewide rates. The rate of use of opioids to get high are slightly lower than the state rate, but the fluctuating Taos Pueblo sample size creates a variation in rate. We saw an 8.1% rate in 2015, and then a 4.5% rate in 2017. In the results of the 2018 New Mexico Community Survey (NMCS), a majority of Taos Pueblo adult respondents reported having a perception of an atmosphere encouraging early initiation of alcohol and substance use, with children using marijuana and alcohol in the elementary school grades. In our 12-month coalition action plan, our DFC Goal 1 is to increase community collaboration by October 30, 2020. Objective 1 is to increase community engagement by 5 members from the 12 members as measured by signed Coalition Involvement Agreements. Objective 2 of this goal is to increase the percentage of TPACT sector representatives with signed CIAs, or their proxies, who have attended and contributed to 12 or more coalition functions, as measured by sign-in sheets, evaluation tools and minutes by 40%. Objective 3 is focused on increasing youth member engagement by 4 people in youth coalition from initial minimum membership of 1 to 5 Taos Pueblo youth ages 12-18 who are committed to promoting youth coalition as measured by sign-in sheets, minutes and educational project outcomes/evaluations. The second DFC Goal is to reduce youth substance abuse by October 30, 2020. Objective 1 is aimed at decreasing the rates of current past 30-day alcohol use by Taos Pueblo youth by 2% as measured by the 2017 YRRS from 12.5% for grades 6-8 and 30.7% for grades 9-12 to 12.25% and 30.1%. Objective 2 is to reduce the rates of current past 30-day use of opioid painkillers to get high by Taos Pueblo youth by 2% as measured by the 2017 YRRS from 6.8% for grades 6-8 and 11.5% for grades 9-12 to 6.7% and 11.3% by October 30, 2021. TPACT will contract with a qualified evaluator who will assist the coalition in developing and implementing an effective data collection, measurement, and analysis plan.
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).