BNYP: Bisbee-Naco Youth Project - Amistades, Inc. proposes to implement BNYP: Bisbee-Naco Youth Project, a Youth Alcohol Prevention and Leadership Initiative that will expand the capacity of the Cochise County Coalition to prevent and reduce underage drinking in Bisbee and Naco, Arizona. Through coalition expansion, youth leadership, community assessment, parent and adult education, alcohol-free prosocial youth engagement, and environmental prevention strategies, the project will strengthen rural border community capacity to reduce youth access to alcohol and increase youth voice in prevention. Amistades is a seasoned prevention provider and Drug-Free Communities recipient with an established prevention coalition in Douglas, Arizona. Through STOP funding, Amistades will work with Cochise County Coalition members representing all 12 community sectors to expand evidence-based, evidence-informed, and policy-focused underage drinking prevention strategies into the neighboring borderland communities of Bisbee and Naco, Arizona, which have a combined population of approximately 6,000 residents. These communities face cultural norms favorable to youth alcohol use, rural geographic isolation, social and economic disparities, limited prevention infrastructure, and significant gaps in local data. Together, these conditions place youth at increased risk for underage drinking and related consequences. Given the small population size of Bisbee and Naco, this initiative has the potential to reach youth ages 10 to 20 across both communities, along with their parents, caregivers, schools, and other trusted adults. Alcohol remains the most commonly used substance among youth in these communities. According to the 2024 Arizona Youth Survey, 19.3% of youth reported past 30-day alcohol use and 13.3% reported problem drinking, defined as consuming five or more drinks on one occasion in the past two weeks. The data also showed an increase in alcohol use among 8th and 10th graders from 9.5% to 13.8%, along with a 3.3% decrease in perception of parental disapproval. These trends point to the need for a coordinated, community-wide prevention approach that strengthens youth, family, school, law enforcement, and community partner engagement. The project’s two goals are to reduce youth access to alcohol and increase youth leadership in alcohol use prevention. Capacity-building activities will include: 1) increasing coalition membership to include new adult members representing Bisbee and Naco; 2) completing a needs assessment and planning process with target community members to better understand causal factors and define prevention priorities; 3) growing the coalition’s Youth Leadership Council by using a near-peer model to engage eight youth from the target communities and adding two of them as youth representatives on the coalition; 4) broadening coalition-hosted alcohol-free prosocial activities to engage youth and families from Bisbee and Naco; 5) training new youth in prevention science, public speaking, presentation skills, advocacy, data collection, and reporting; and 6) developing an environmental norms campaign aimed at reducing youth access to alcohol through parent and adult education, with accompanying social host ordinance development Amistades will partner with four agencies in the target communities: Boys & Girls Club of Bisbee, Bisbee Police Department, Naco Elementary School District, and Bisbee Unified School District.
