Santa Cruz County BRIDGE CARA Youth Prevention Project - The Santa Cruz County BRIDGE CARA Youth Prevention Project will expand the existing prevention infrastructure of Circles of Peace and the Santa Cruz County Drug-Free Community “BRIDGE” Coalition to address youth opioid, methamphetamine, fentanyl, counterfeit pill, and prescription drug misuse in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. Santa Cruz County is a rural border community located along the U.S.–Mexico border and within an Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area footprint. Youth and families in the county are affected by fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking, counterfeit pill availability, prescription drug misuse risk, rural isolation, limited prevention resources, and barriers to timely bilingual prevention information. The project will serve youth ages 18 and under, with a priority focus on middle and high school youth in Nogales, Rio Rico, Patagonia, Sonoita, and surrounding unincorporated rural communities. The project will also engage parents/caregivers, educators, healthcare and behavioral health partners, law enforcement, faith and civic leaders, youth-serving organizations, local government, businesses, and media partners. Through CARA, Circles of Peace and the BRIDGE Coalition will implement a comprehensive, community-wide prevention approach aligned with the Seven Strategies for Community-Level Change. Strategies will include youth-led prevention activities, parent/caregiver and educator workshops, school and community outreach, rural prevention events, safe medication storage and disposal education, prevention messaging through social media/radio/text alerts, policy and practice education, youth-led community mapping, and cross-sector coordination. The project will use statewide prevention tools from Substance Abuse Coalition Leaders of Arizona, along with NIH and SAMHSA resources, to support consistent, evidence-informed messaging for youth, families, educators, and community partners. Expected outcomes include increased awareness of opioid, methamphetamine, fentanyl, counterfeit pill, and prescription drug misuse risks; increased youth participation in prevention leadership; improved access to prevention information in rural communities; stronger parent/caregiver and educator capacity to recognize warning signs and talk with youth; increased use of safe medication storage and disposal practices; strengthened coordination across community sectors; and improved community norms that discourage youth substance misuse. Over the five-year project period, the coalition aims to reduce and prevent youth opioid, methamphetamine, and prescription drug misuse and change the culture and context regarding the acceptability of youth use and misuse of these substances. Circles of Peace has the fiscal, administrative, and programmatic capacity to manage CARA. The organization has served as fiscal agent for the county’s only Drug-Free Communities funded coalition, which began in 2012 and was funded for 10 years, and currently manages multiple federal, state, and local prevention and community-based grants. The project will be monitored through CARA core measures, Arizona Youth Survey data, participation logs, pre/post surveys, coalition tracking, youth feedback, media analytics, policy/practice tracking, and annual progress reporting.
