Protect Our Youth Coalition - The Protect Our Youth (POY) Coalition is applying for the Drug-Free Communities Support Program-Competing Continuation (Year 6) grant in the amount of $125,000. The population of focus for this grant is youth ages 5-17 in the Fountain Hills and the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation (FMYN) region. The POY Project will utilize evidence-based prevention efforts with the goals of reducing youth alcohol and marijuana use, and the misuse of prescription medications while also improving capacity, collaboration, and infrastructure at the community level to enhance the population. The POY mission is “to achieve sustainable reductions in substance abuse among youth” and the coalition brings together local residents, youth, schools, public safety, healthcare, businesses, faith-based organizations, local government, and tribal partners to reduce risk factors and strengthen protective factors in a close-knit, small-town community. Guided by the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF), POY uses local data— including the Arizona Youth Survey, coalition-conducted assessments, community input, and partner data—to identify and address the conditions that contribute to youth substance use. These conditions include low perception of harm, social and home access to substances, normalization of use, exposure to pro-substance messaging, and gaps in family and community communication. The FMYN is an active partner, with the Education Director serving as a sector leader and a new tribal partner embedded within the public high school, strengthening culturally responsive prevention efforts and school–community connection. POY’s geographic footprint is located northeast of Phoenix, Arizona and includes Fountain Hills, a 20-square-mile town, and FMYN, a 40-square-mile reservation. Fountain Hills and FMYN are in the central-east portion of Arizona and represent a unique community context for youth substance use prevention, with 23,820 people residing in Fountain Hills and 1,003 in FMYN. Fountain Hills is primarily White (89.4%), followed by Two or More Races (4.7%), Hispanic (3.6%), Black (2.3%), Asian (2.1%), and American Indian/Alaska Native (0.1%). FMYN is primarily American Indian/Alaska Native (73.7%), then by Hispanic (24.1%), Two or More Races (11.1%), White (9.5%), Asian (2.0%), Black (0.5%), and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (0.5%). One of the driving reasons for this grant proposal is that current use of alcohol and marijuana among Fountain Hill youth is higher than the Arizona (AZ) and Maricopa County (MC) rates: 16% used alcohol (AZ: 12.3%; MC: 11.8%) and 9.5% used marijuana (AZ: 7.4%; MC: 6.9%). While local prescription drug data wasn’t available, the 2024 rate of reported social access to prescription drugs in Maricopa County (5.92%) increased since 2020 (4.01%). The project objectives include increasing the number of community coalition building strategies and other evidenced-based interventions based on the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) and utilizing all 7 Strategies for Community Change to address the use of these substances by minors. Key strategies such as media campaigns, the Safe Home Network, Family Dinner Night, and the Above That Club youth coalition. These activities work together to increase youth and parent awareness, shift perceptions of harm, reduce social access to substances, and strengthen family communication and bonding. At the same time, environmental strategies—like safe storage initiatives, retailer engagement, school and town policy changes, diversion programs, and reporting systems—are designed to create lasting changes in norms, access, and accountability. Together, this approach aligns direct programming with broader systems change to sustain long-term reductions in youth substance use.
