Wednesday, May 14, 2025
5/14/2025
Wayne County Recovery Coalition Drug Free Communities Support Program - The Wayne County Recovery Coalition (WCRC) is a multi-sector coalition that serves Wayne County, GA with strategic planning, implementation and evaluation of youth substance use prevention. WCRC was established in 2019 through a Rural Community Opioid Response Program planning grant to assess community needs and develop partnerships to address them due to the high rates of opioid use and overdoses in Wayne County. From its inception, WCRC has received staff support, training and technical assistance from Share Health Southeast Georgia, a 501(c)(3) that has been building the capacity of its rural 16-county region to address unmet health care needs since 2015. Another partner, Anchored in Community, has also mentored and staffed WCRC since it started. After working successfully to bring treatment and recovery resources into this critically underserved county, and with continued support from Share Health and Anchored, WCRC expanded its focus in 2021 to include youth substance use prevention. Share Health will be the fiscal agent and grantee for WCRC. Wayne County is a large, sparsely populated rural county located in southeast Georgia. Its population stands at 30,380 with a racial/ethnic distribution of 76% Caucasian, 20% African American, 4% Mixed Race/Other and 7% Hispanic/Latino. Twenty-four percent of the population is under age 18, and 56% of families with children live in poverty. The rate of child abuse and neglect is more than double that of Georgia, with 8.7 per 1,000 vs 3.6 per 1,000. Wayne County is considered one of the most underserved counties in GA for health and behavioral health resources. Fortunately, the spirit of collaboration is strong and community sectors are accustomed to working together to improve conditions for youth. WCRC’s strategic prevention planning is data-driven, comprehensive and focused on community-level change. Reducing and preventing underage drinking is a priority focus with strategies to reduce commercial and social access and change norms that accept it as a part of adolescence. Alcohol is still the #1 substance used by Wayne County youth. WCRC plans to expand compliance checks and advocate with the county to increase penalties for underage alcohol sales. To reduce social access, WCRC will launch the Parents Who Host Lose the Most campaign. Retail signage at alcohol outlets will remind patrons of fines and sanctions related to giving alcohol to anyone under 21. WCRC will advocate for social host liability ordinances in Wayne County and Georgia and will expand public awareness about how alcohol negatively affects adolescents. Due to the local availability of prescription drugs, especially opioids, as well as the presence of fentanyl, WCRC will also focus on preventing youth prescription drug misuse. Following CDC recommendations, strategies will increase public awareness about the risks related to prescription drug misuse, promote safe/secure medication storage and disposal, and publicize Georgia’s Good Samaritan law that encourages bystanders to contact first responders in the event of a suspected overdose without fear of arrest. The coalition will establish a Fentanyl Response Team that will focus on public awareness messages related to the risks and prevalence of opioids and fentanyl and their role in local overdoses. They will launch the Prevention Action Alliance’s Prescription Drugs and You and DEA’s One Pill Can Kill campaigns and develop lesson plans for the schools that cover these topic areas. WCRC’s members, sector representatives and other community partners are experienced and successful at collaborating and are up to the challenge of implementing their DFC Work Plan for 2023-2024.
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).