Wayne County Community Schools Drug Free Community Coalition - The Wayne County Community Schools Drug Free Community Coalition (WCCS-DFCC) was awarded a FY2022 Drug-Free Communities Support Program grant in the amount of $125,000 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Coalition serves Wayne County, NY, a community of 91,283. The WCCS-DFCC will be guided by the Finger Lakes Community Schools model including organizing factors, and corresponding data, utilizing the ARCH-C framework. ARCH stands for Attachment, (e.g., to family, community, or school), Regulation of self, (e.g., controlling impulsiveness and sensation seeking), Competency, (e.g., academic, skills, self-efficacy), and Health, both physical and behavioral/social-emotional which are addressed through -Collaborative planning, implementation, and evaluation of multiple strategies. This model operates as a person-centered, place-based approach prompting consideration of social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs of young people, and encouraging communities to work together to shape environments and harness resources to meet those needs. Prevention researchers have identified a subset of early and shared risk and protective factors that can be targeted to reduce the prevalence of mental, emotional, and behavioral difficulties for children and youth. We have mapped how these health risk factors interfere with social and emotional development in our community, leading to more negative life trajectories, especially for youth with multiple challenges occur locally. WCCS-DFCC, and the proposed strategic substance abuse prevention planning process, will benefit from a decade of extensive data collection and analysis conducted under the auspices of the Wayne Partnership, and supported by Finger Lakes Community Schools. Despite decreasing rates of use of alcohol and marijuana, the proportion of Wayne County High School students reporting having used alcohol at least once, i.e., lifetime use of alcohol, was 38.3% in 2021. These results indicate that alcohol remains the drug of choice and a continuing concern. Nearly one in four (24.0%) high school students used marijuana at some point in their lifetime. As a result, alcohol and marijuana are the two primary substances to be addressed by the WCCS-DFCC through a Community Schools model of co-locating and integrating community supports using a Multi-Tiered System of Supports. The coalition’s two goals are to increase collaboration and to reduce youth substance use. Accomplishing those goals will require addressing Social Determinants of Health, inequities in access to services and careful coordination of available resources. This cross-sector effort operates as an extension of collaboration supported by the Wayne Partnership and relies on the leadership and expertise of Wayne County Mental Health, the Council on Alcohol and Addictions of the Finger Lakes and Sodus Central School District.
