Latino Community Wellness Association's DFC application to increase protective factors specific to Tualatin's Latino community members. - LATINO COMMUNITY WELLNESS ASSOCIATION ABSTRACT Asociación Latina de Bienestar a la Comunidad “Latino Community Wellness Association” (LCWA) will serve the City of Tualatin, Oregon, with an emphasis on meeting the prevention needs of Latino families. LCWA will work closely with its mentoring coalition and fiscal agent, Tualatin Together, to provide prevention strategies, campaigns, and activities to meet the needs of all families and youth in the service area, while ensuring that families in the Latino community receive accessible and culturally competent services. LCWA’s mission is to prevent underage drinking and drug use and promote youth and family mental health through community engagement, education and support. LCWA’s approach will honor Latino cultural values such as families, community relationships, respect, spirituality and self-and-community determination. LCWA will employ strategies and activities from all seven strategies of change, using culturally specific messaging and channels of communication. LCWA aims to be a trusted coalition to provide information and education and engage the community to best support our youth and families. LCWA aims to achieve the following outcomes: 1) reduce the percentage of 11th graders in Tualatin who have used alcohol in the past 30 days, 2) reduce the percentage of 11th graders in Tualatin who have used marijuana in the past 30 days, 3) reduce the percentage of students who report that there is little or no risk in marijuana use once or twice per week, and 4) reduce the percentage of students who report that there is no to moderate risk in using prescription drugs not prescribed to them LCWA will use all seven strategies for community change, including environment strategies such as community and park clean-ups and working with the City of Tualatin to increase street lighting. LCWA will engage the Tualatin Latino community through culturally specific outreach, invitations, events, and messaging, including the use of local Spanish language media such as TV Jam, a local Washington County-based Spanish language Facebook channel that is easily accessed on community members’ cell phones. Activities, events, and services will be conducted in Spanish by members of the Latino community and will include Tualatin Together, LCWA’s mentoring coalition, will serve as the fiscal agent. LCWA will be staffed by .33 Fiscal Manager/Authorized Organizational Representative, .33 Project Director/Principal Investigator, and .75 Project Coordinator. The success of LCWA will be evaluated through a mixture of both traditional and culturally- aligned measures, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative measures, including the Oregon Student Wellness Survey. LCWA will also conduct a new survey of the needs of the Tualatin Latino community. The survey will be supplemented by focus groups; individual and small group interviews; and participatory information collection. LCWA will work with evaluator Rodney A. Wambeam PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming, to design and implement the survey and other evaluation instruments.
