NIAPA- Leading Above the Influence - The North Iowa Addiction Prevention Alliance (NIAPA) is dedicated to furthering the DFC program goals of establishing and strengthening collaboration among communities and reducing substance use among youth in rural northern Iowa. The coalition consists of nearly two dozen key community agencies assembled to assist in carrying out the goals outlined in the DFC 12-month action plan. NIAPA’s most recent strategic plan outlined four specific substances of concern: alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, marijuana, and opioids, to address with prevention efforts in various systems, policy, environmental and programmatic approaches. The DFC workplan will propel the coalition partners to expediate and expand their reach and impact of these strategies. To further goal one of the DFC grant, NIAPA partners will participate in multiple professional development opportunities to increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities to provide alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, and opioid prevention and education. Partners will also assist in conduction of compliance checks with local law enforcement, draft ordinances to improve systems and environmental conditions reducing substance misuse. The coalition will also create and maintain a website for public and partner use to share education, data, and outcomes of the work achieved. Members of NIAPA will work to address goal two of the DFC grant by educating and instilling prevention tactics to youth and their parents. Parent involvement will be harnessed through employer engagement campaigns, to include a monthly toolkit with resources empowering strong parent-child relationships. Youth education approaches include in-school prevention curriculum programs, student-led substance abuse prevention clubs and the expansion of a parent and youth combined diversion program. Collectively, NIAPA partners will also supplement these prevention messages with community-wide marketing activities, to include traditional media outlets like billboards, radio, social media and branded materials but also expand into podcasts and surveillance dashboards, capturing real time data and outcomes of NIAPA’s activities. Additionally, partners will work to host community assemblies available to the public, and specifically target families, to expand upon prevention messaging and the importance of building a strong parent-child relationship. Altogether, the NIAPA coalition’s workplan aims to use these strategies to drive policy, environmental and programmatic changes to reduce substance misuse in our community and provide a safe, nurturing environment for our youth to grow and prosper.
