Monday, June 9, 2025
6/9/2025
Winooski Drug Free Communities Project - The Winooski Partnership for Prevention Drug Free Communities Project proposes to continue and expand progress building community capacity and addressing youth substance use in Winooski. The organization will complete its first Drug Free Communities grant funding cycle in the fall of 2024, which has been foundational in supporting culture change around substance use. Despite the challenges that came with carrying out the majority of the project during the Covid-19 pandemic that exposed both gaps in our social service system and health disparities, as for much of the country, these same challenges revealed the importance of the country’s public health infrastructure. During the pandemic, the Winooski Partnership for Prevention (hereafter also referred to as WPP) substance use prevention coalition pivoted so that it could continue to support youth, families, community leaders and members as much as possible, using online resources and socially-distanced programming. Because of this, the WPP was able to serve as a bulwark against a worse backslide of substance use problems, which were a predictable result of an environment defined by hyper-vigilance, necessary isolation, economic uncertainty, and opportunistic industries. In the past four and a half years, WPP has strengthened its partnerships with community leaders, embedded itself as a resource in the city’s long-range plan and as a provider of youth programming at the school district and within the community center, and influenced policy and enforcement of policy, among other successes. Based on assessment work WPP carried out in 2023, needs that stand out include supporting families and grassroots leadership capacity building. As a result of this recent assessment, the WPP will approach the next phase of substance use prevention efforts in the community with strategies that will address these needs. In this proposal, the WPP specifically aims to implement a comprehensive mix of strategies that fall under three overarching goals: *Increasing grass roots community capacity to reduce substance use *Increase access to treatment for alcohol and cannabis for youth, young adults, and adults *Increase technical assistance to Winooski city government and schools to institutionalize public health as a frame with which to carry out operations and policy-making The WPP is excited to learn from its federal partners that the public health field is increasingly incorporating an expectation of more community-organizing into coalition building and development. The WPP sees community and grassroots organizing as a vital tract in building shared power in Winooski that will lead to greater self-efficacy and more effective utilization of substance use prevention strategies that reflect and respond to the needs and knowledge of residents. With this approach comes an increased sense of dignity and ownership over the efforts the coalition makes together that will potentially also build trust and connection, the true hope and wish of most human beings and the true antidote to addiction. The WPP looks forward to the potential opportunity to continue this work in the city of Winooski, Vermont, and beyond.
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).