Substance Abuse CONNECT Coalition's Youth Substance Use Prevention: Leveraging Coordinated Efforts Between Businesses, Parents and Schools in Yellowstone County, MT - Billings School District #2 (BSD2), Montana's largest school district, faces a critical issue: continued youth substance use, particularly alcohol and cannabis. This CDC Drug-Free Communities project targets middle and high school students enrolled in the BSD2 who are at risk or showing warning signs for substance use. The Substance Abuse CONNECT (SAC) Coalition, supported administratively and fiscally by United Way of Yellowstone County (UWYC), is a group of more than 80 diverse organizations working comprehensively to reduce youth substance use among youth in Yellowstone County – with representation from substance use disorder (SUD) and mental healthcare providers, social services, the school systems, law enforcement, and local government. While each organization on the SAC Coalition has specific missions and populations of focus, SAC’s Mission Statement is “to unite Yellowstone County to substantially reduce drug-related crime and addiction through effective prevention, treatment, and diversion.” This project focuses on reducing cannabis and alcohol consumption within this population. The main objectives guiding this project’s activities center around increased awareness of patterns of youth substance use among parents and community members, increasing the capacity of local agencies to coordinate efforts, increasing access to substance-free alternatives, and increasing protective factors while minimizing risk factors of substance. The expected outcomes include: • Increased knowledge of youth substance usage and prevention efforts. • Improved collaboration among stakeholders. • Reduced risk factors and increased protective factors for youth substance use. • Decreased substance use among youth. The plan is a testament to the power of collaboration. It focuses on empowering stakeholders, promoting positive decision-making in youth, and increasing access to healthy alternatives. This will be achieved through a series of workshops, presentations, toolkits, multi-layered social media campaigns, and community events, all of which will leverage SAC’s extensive network. This network includes students, school district administrators, parents, and local businesses. By implementing these strategies over the next five years, the initiative aims to foster sustainable, community-level change that reduces youth substance use and its negative consequences. As a recognized Communities That Care (CTC) Coalition, SAC will employ a 12-month action plan that utilizes the Seven Strategies for Community Change and the Strategic Prevention Framework to achieve the program's goals of reducing youth substance use through increasing support, and promoting healthy activity alternatives. Activities include advocacy for alcohol-free zones in the county fairgrounds and the Billings Metra Park; school mentorship programs; informational community town halls with parents; providing incentives for safe and responsible beverage serving to local businesses; and using targeted media campaigns to shift student attitudes that contribute to a youth culture supporting substance use. Collaborations with school administration and community organizations will ensure program accessibility within the target geographic area. Grounded in research and informed by our community's unique needs, our approach represents a collective effort to address youth substance use and the need our youth has to self-medicate. Through the integration of evidence-based practices and innovative approaches, we are poised to make a meaningful impact on the lives of our youth and the trajectory of our community, as well as serve as an example for statewide initiatives, as we serve the largest collective youth population in Montana.
