DFC Year 6-FY25 Cohort - Choose Your Path Coalition - The Choose Your Path Coalition, which developed out of the longstanding United Partners coalition, is dedicated to serving the Wauconda Community Unit School District 118 (Illinois). Choose Your Path was created 6 years ago and has collaborated with the Wauconda community to significantly improve the rates of substance use among underage youth. The district governs three elementary schools (Cotton Creek School, Robert Crown School, and Wauconda Grade School), two middle schools (Matthews Middle School and Wauconda Middle School), and one high school (Wauconda High School). Choose Your Path is focused on 12-18 year olds in Wauconda Middle School, Matthews Middle School, and Wauconda High School. While Wauconda Middle School and Wauconda High School are located in Wauconda, and Matthews Middle School is located in Island Lake, together all three schools serve the communities of Wauconda, Island Lake, Lakemoor, Volo, Port Barrington, and Lake Barrington. Enrollment for the 2024-25 school year in the entire district is 4,093. The villages in the community all have relatively low crime rates (as compared to the state and national averages) and are made up of married families with moderate incomes ($57,524 average per person in Wauconda). Although the high school has been on the cutting edge of education, it has historically lagged in the field of substance use prevention. As a result of this lack of information, the community's previous principal strategy to dealing with underage drinking and drug use was to "look the other way." The community strives to maintain a positive reputation and does not want to be embarrassed by any problems with youth substance use. In this context, the high school and the United Partners coalition recognized that these attitudes are not driven by the district, but rather were community based and started working on ways to address these issues. In 2016, the school administered the Illinois Youth Survey for the first time in many years to assess the students’ use, access, attitudes, and beliefs about substance use. In 2018 the survey results worsened, thereby leading to the need to collaboratively focus on improving the health and safety of youth regarding substance use throughout the Wauconda area. Over the last six years the Choose Your Path Coalition has been addressing the issues of youth substance use and has significantly decreased the rates of underage use. While there have been positive outcomes, more work is needed in relation to use (particularly as it relates to vaping tobacco and marijuana) and parental knowledge and attitudes, especially the provision of alcohol to youth with permission to consume. In the next five years, Choose Your Path will strengthen collaboration among its members and community stakeholders while also reducing youth substance use and promoting factors to minimize the risk of use, ultimately improving adult substance use rates and community well-being in the long run. This will be accomplished through the limiting access to substances, changing the culture and context within which decisions about substance use are made, social norms and communication campaigns, shifting consequences associated with youth substance use, and continuous enforcement of underage drinking and drug laws as part of the Seven Strategies for Community Level Change (provide information, build skills, provide support, increase access and reduce barriers while improving connections, change consequences, change physical designs, and educate and inform on policies). The continuation of this Drug-Free Communities grant is central to the action plan to make continued improvements in the Wauconda area community.
