Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
SLV Teen Prevention Coalition - Boys and Girls Club of the San Luis Valley (BGCSLV) requests $125,000/year to support the expansion of its existing Opioid Abatement Coalition to include a Teen Prevention Coalition in the San Luis Valley, where BGCSLV is a trusted out-of-school-time service and outreach provider to young people. The purpose of the Coalition is to establish a youth-specific (ages 10-18) council that monitors the needs of their respective communities, makes recommendations to communities to address youth substance-use concerns, and provides outreach and direct peer navigator services to youth in their counties to effectively address growing concerns around youth substance misuse. These strategies will allow the Teen Prevention Coalition to effectively meet the long-term goals of this grant program: to establish and strengthen collaboration among community stakeholders and organizations to address youth substance use and reduce substance use among youth; and to reduce substance use among adults by addressing the factors in the community that increase the risk of substance use and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance use. BGCSLV will hire three (3) part-time staff to oversee prevention efforts in the five counties in the San Luis Valley, recruit youth members, and organize community partners in each of these communities. The organization will recruit and train two (2) youth members from each county to become Peer Navigators. BGCSLV staff and Peer Navigators will then use Unite Us, a resource navigation tool, to refer youth in their communities to organizations and services to support substance use prevention and response. The Coalition members and Peer Navigators will create robust relationships in their communities, increase awareness of prevention efforts among locals, businesses, and organizations, and help educate communities on best practices to prevent substance use among youth in their neighborhoods. The Coalition will work as a collaborative to evaluate needs and suggest programming based on the unique needs of the counties within the San Luis Valley. Additionally, the Coalition will be responsible for measuring and evaluating its effectiveness in minimizing substance use among youth in the five countries of the San Luis Valley. Expected long-term outcomes of this project include: 1. Establishing and strengthening collaboration among community stakeholders and organizations to address youth substance use. The short-term outcomes that support this long-term goal include increasing outreach to relevant sectors, increasing the capacity of local agencies to address youth substance use, and increasing intergovernmental collaboration to change conditions that impact youth substance use. 2. Reducing substance use among youth and, over time, reducing substance use among young adults by addressing the factors in the community that increase the risk of substance use, and by promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance use. The short-term outcomes that support this long-term goal include improving knowledge regarding patterns of youth substance use, improving knowledge of Coalition efforts to reduce youth substance use in the community and addressing specific protective factors such as positive future orientation, peer pressure resistance skills, pro-social positive management of emotions, and empathy with parents. Additionally, the Teen Prevention Coalition will measure improvements in key indicators including Past 30-Day Use, Perception of Risk, Perception of Parental Disapproval, and Perception of Peer Disapproval.
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).