Tuesday, May 20, 2025
5/20/2025
Northern Orange Partnership for Alcohol Drug Free Youth - Orange Partnership for Alcohol and Drug Free Youth was launched in 2008 in response to community concerns about underage drinking and drug use in Hillsborough and rural Orange County. The area of focus includes the small town of Hillsborough, which is the county seat, and surrounding rural areas. Seven townships comprise the predominantly rural county. The catchment area serves a lower income population, as noted by nine schools eligible for Title 1 funding; four of which are designated. Orange County Schools (OCS) has seven elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools and one alternative high school, serving a total of 7,526 students. Students in the OCS district are 60% White, 20% Hispanic, 15% African American and 4% are multi-racial. The 19% of Hillsborough area residents living in poverty, combined with the upper middle-class professionals associated with close-by academic institutions, has created a disparity of access and resources. Our mission is to create and sustain healthy and safe communities for Orange County youth, preventing youth substance use through community collaboration, education, youth empowerment and policy advocacy. Our initiatives include preventing prescription drug abuse, underage drinking and youth marijuana use. Through partnerships, we decrease youth access to alcohol products, increase safe prescribing, safe storage and safe disposal of medications, and education on the effects of youth marijuana use. This project will incorporate CADCA’s seven strategies for community change. Through trainings, we plan to provide information and enhance parent skills in speaking with their youth about, and thereby preventing, youth substance use. We engagement local youth in this work; training high school students, to serve as peer mentors to middle and high school youth, conduct merchant education and advocate for policy changes, and change the way the community views and responds to underage substance use. This project will work towards changing physical design, modifying policy, and decreasing youth access by collaborating with retailers and local governments to implement best practices related to alcohol sales. Strategies successfully used as a DFC recipient will be employed to complete all these objectives, including alcohol purchase surveys and environmental audits as merchant education tools, youth-to-youth peer education techniques, and intergovernmental cooperation. The effectiveness of these strategies will be measured through community and student surveys, the number of training attendees and peer education recipients, and the number of best practices employed as assessed through alcohol purchase surveys and environmental audits. Orange Partnership for Alcohol and Drug Free Youth has the experience, capacity and passion to reduce youth substance use in Hillsborough and rural Orange County, North Carolina.
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).