The Massac County Drug Awareness Coalition's program to reduce youth tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. - Massac County Drug Awareness Coalition (MCDAC) is a community coalition that has been in existence since 2012. Our efforts over the past 12 years have been focused largely on youth prevention. During that time period, and especially over the past 4 years, we have managed to reduce past 30-day use of youth use of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs. However, local data still shows that youth do not see some substances as risky, and there is a perception that many of their peers are using these substances even though the data show that they are not. Our data also show that parents are providing alcohol to youth. Mental health concerns are also present among Massac County youth, and that could be contributing to substance use. MCDAC’s goal is to increase community collaboration and decrease substance use in Massac County, IL. We aim to increase community collaboration through information sharing through social media, newsletters, and meetings while collaborating with community organizations to create connections and to be visible and approachable to the community. Through our active coalition members and Youth Advisory Councils at two different schools, MCDAC hopes to reduce substance use even further throughout the community while focusing on youth use of alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco. Strategies include educating youth on the risks of substance use with evidence-based programming, educating parents on the dangers of providing those substances to youth, changing the consequences of participating in positive activities such as our Youth Advisory Council, reducing adverse childhood experiences through a Drug Endangered Children Alliance, and educating the community and policymakers on topics surrounding substance use where changes can be made. Throughout the five years of funding, MCDAC aims to have an increase in knowledge in youth and parents, an increase in the capacity and cooperation of community agencies working to address youth substance abuse, increase the ease, ability, and opportunity for youth to access programs to increase self-efficacy, decrease the ease, ability, and opportunity for youth access to substances, and increase the mental health education and access to resources for our youth.
