Stafford and Ellington Expanding Delivery of Prevention (SEED) - The Village for Families & Children’s Stafford and Ellington Expanding Delivery of Prevention (SEED) will strengthen the capacities of two local prevention coalitions in an area of suburban and rural Connecticut. Over 5 years, SEED will directly impact 4,186 youth ages 11-18 and will indirectly impact 2,095 family and community members. Annually, SEED will serve 1,256 youth, families, and community members with evidence-based prevention strategies. Stafford and Ellington are adjacent communities in North Central Connecticut and have a combined population of 27,811 residents, 16,339 and 11,472 respectively. Ellington’s median household income is $124, 495 while Stafford’s is $92,292. Both communities have a poverty rate of about 6%. A significant portion of Stafford’s population is 60 or older and there are many grandparent-headed households. According to Census data, the percentage of multigenerational households in Stafford has increased 21% from 2010 to 2020. The goals of SEED are: 1) strengthen the coalition structure, sector representation, and prevention capacities in Ellington and Stafford, CT and 2) reduce and prevent youth alcohol and cannabis use for those in Grades 6-12. SEED’s objectives are to: 1) assess current capacity of coalitions; 2) develop data-informed action plans to increase community engagement and expand coalition membership; 3) conduct coalition membership and partnership inventory and develop strategies to increase membership and coalition readiness; 4) design and launch messaging and campaigns aimed at increasing community awareness of youth substance use and coalitions in each community; 5) design and initiate an 8th grade transition program in each community that includes a youth-to-coalition membership “pipeline component; 6) utilize capacity assessment and partnership inventory outcomes to inform development of a detailed implementation plan; 7) conduct a needs assessment aimed at engaging youth and adults from each community, to confirm the identified priority youth substances to be addressed and establish a plan to prioritize and address associated risk and protective factors, consumption and consequence variables; 8) identify evidence-based, evidence-informed and community-defined prevention strategies that are aligned with priority youth substance consumption, identified risk factors and/or related consequences to be included in implementation plan; 9) develop and deploy community-driven implementation plan that aims to reduce and prevent youth use of alcohol and cannabis; and 10) develop an evaluation plan that will assess process, capacity and substance use short and long-term outcomes. Strategies will include events teaching 8th-grade students about positive social norms, resistance skills and positive ways to get involved in middle and high schools; promoting existing mental health resources; conducting retail compliance checks to reduce the availability of alcohol to minors; implementation of a culturally appropriate multi-modal media campaign targeting teens and parents related to underage drinking and cannabis use; and other as determined by the strategic planning efforts in year one.
