COPE Detroit - COPE Detroit was established in May 2021 under the following mission statement: To prevent youth and adult substance abuse through communitywide education and advocacy in the Eastside of Detroit. Detroit is in Wayne County, Michigan, and the largest city in the state. The Detroit Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is estimated at 4,296,250 (Census, 2020) and includes Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties within a 3,888 sq mile area. In 10 years, the city of Detroit population dropped 10% from 713,777 (2010) to 639,111 (2020) as many residents relocated to the suburbs of Oakland and Macomb to escape the problems plaguing our city to this day. The highlights of the community characteristics of the Eastside include a population of 159,346 residents of which 81% are African American and more than 36 % of the children under 18 years of age and live below the poverty line. There are 2,500 students in our target schools (Denby, East English Prep, Southeastern, Brewer, and Hamilton) of whom 99% are African American, and 90% are from low-income households. In 2018, Michigan State and Detroit experienced a major setback in laws and norms favorable to drug use. It was then that Michigan State voters approved the legalization of recreational marijuana use. Without a doubt this action has negatively impacted Detroit youth, adults, and families by making marijuana more easily accessible and more readily available to youth. The conditions in and around Detroit have contributed to the 58% increase in current marijuana use among high school youth (17.6% in 2015 to 27.8% in 2021) and current alcohol use rates among high school youth increased from 22.6% in 2015 to 34.2% in 2019. The purpose of the COPE Detroit Drug-Free Communities Project is to establish and strengthen collaboration among stakeholders to better address youth substance misuse and to leverage these collaborations to sustain a series of environmental strategies designed to systematically reduce youth substance abuse. COPE’s 12 sector representative have identified two substance abuse priorities—Alcohol and Marijuana—that are adversely impacting the youth and families in Detroit. Working in close collaboration with the City of Detroit, Detroit Public School District, Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, and a regional alliance of substance abuse Prevention Network coalitions in neighboring communities COPE will engage in multiple strategies to achieve the following outcomes: 1) Reduce 30-day Alcohol Use among 11th grade students from the 2019 baseline of 33.1% to 29.8% (-3.3) by 2024 as measured by the Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth. 2027 Target: 6.6-point (20%) net decrease; 26.5% or lower. 2) Reduce 30-day Marijuana Use among 11th grade students from the current 2019 baseline of 28.8% to 24.3% (-4.5) by 2024 as measured by the Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth. (2027 Target: 9-point (20%) net decrease; 23% or lower. COPE Detroit is targeting the middle and high school age youth and their families with the following strategies to be implemented in the first year of the 5-year project include: 1) Securing the infrastructure and capacity to address substance abuse prevention through wide-ranging community collaboration, 2) Improving coalition competency through trainings and education, 3) Increasing awareness of the issues around alcohol and marijuana with multimodal communications, 4) Enhancing parenting skills to buffer exposure to negative influences, 5) Implementing a comprehensive prevention media campaign targeting alcohol and marijuana, 6) Enhancing school-based student prevention clubs with training and activity support, 7) Advocating for school drug and alcohol response policy reviews and updates, 8) Conducting outreach targeting under-resourced, underrepresented communities, and 9) Improving access to prevention resource for parents and their families.
