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Executive Summary
Olympic Educational Service District 114 is one of eighteen recipients of the Washington State Incentive Grant (SIG). SIG funds are allocated to communities to prevent the use, misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drugs by Washington State youth. Community grantees are expected to make their local prevention system more effective by establishing prevention partnerships, using a risk and protective factor framework for data driven needs assessments, and by implementing and monitoring science-based prevention programs.
Project Site
Olympic ESD 144 offices are located in Bremerton, Kitsap County. Their SIG project was located in Jefferson County, one of the counties within the boundaries of Olympic ESD 114, which is one of nine school district consortiums in Washington State. Located in the north and east Olympic Peninsula, Jefferson County is a rural county that lacks many of the services and programs found in urban areas. Many adults and youth view the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs as an easy way to "kill time." In order to counter these perceptions and attitudes, family-oriented programs that teach refusal and parenting skills were chosen for the project. SIG-sponsored prevention programs were provided in the eastern Jefferson County communities of Port Townsend, Chimacum, Brinnon, and Quilcene.
Prevention History
Prior to SIG, Jefferson County collaborative planning efforts among prevention agencies, organizations, and school districts were limited. The SIG project represents one of the county's first collaborative efforts in grant writing and assessing prevention needs and services. SIG introduced the concept of using data to prioritize risk and protective factors, and to select and evaluate science-based programs. Programs selected by the Jefferson County SIG project address family management skills and family relations.
Challenges reportedly experienced by local SIG staff while attempting to implement the SIG project included a limited variety of research-based prevention programs from which to choose, school personnel's uneasiness regarding program scope and target populations, the unexpectedly high amount of travel time required for program providers, and unanticipated training costs.
Progress toward SIG Community Level Objectives
Objective 1: To establish partnerships...to collaborate at the local level to prevent alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drug use, misuse, and abuse by youth.
Jefferson County Community Network helped create the Jefferson County Prevention Council before SIG funding was awarded. SIG's emphasis on partnerships has helped to stimulate the Prevention Council's interest in increasing its own collaborations. On a quarterly basis, the Jefferson County Prevention Council brings together service providers and the public for the exchange of information, review of local research, and development of strategies to enhance services. The Council has had a tremendous impact, respondents note, in increasing community awareness about SIG programs.
Objective 2: To use a risk and protective factor framework to develop a community prevention action plan...
SIG helped increase awareness of the risk and protective factor framework among Jefferson County prevention providers, the schools, and Olympic ESD 114. Further training is needed for other schools and providers as understanding and use of the framework is not universal.
Objective 3: To participate in joint community risk and protective factor and resource assessment...
Members of the Jefferson County Prevention Council participated in the data driven, SIG-sponsored, collaborative needs assessment, pilot-tested statewide in spring 2001. As their resource assessment, the council mapped school-based prevention programs throughout the county to identify existing resources and service gaps. Examples of data sets that were used in planning include local demographic reports, county profiles, juvenile justice reports, law enforcement data, the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behavior, and local health district census reports.
Objective 4: To select and implement effective prevention actions...
The SIG process encouraged the choice of programs that have been shown, through published research, to be effective in different locales and with multiple populations. These are known as research-based programs. The programs the Council selected to address their prioritized risk and protective factors include the following:
- Strengthening Families: A science based program for 6- to 10-year-old children of substance abusers. It includes a parent training program, a children's skills training program, and a family skills training program. It has been implemented in three of the four SIG sites.
- Take Time: A school-based support program for students and their families, it serves a set number of youth and families. Some schools expected a higher number of youth to be served by the program.
- Functional Family Therapy: An eight to twelve week in-home program to increase reciprocity and positive support among family members and to create clear and positive communication. Enrollment and participation have been higher in the two larger communities, Port Townsend and Chimacum, than in Brinnon and Quilcene.
Objective 5: To use common reporting tools...
Common reporting tools include the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behaviors and the Everest program monitoring outcome system. Because they are funded through many sources, prevention providers must observe multiple evaluation and reporting requirements.
Conclusion
The Jefferson County SIG community has shown progress toward meeting its internal SIG goals and objectives, and toward achieving the community level objectives established by the Governor's Substance Abuse Prevention Advisory Committee. During the third and last year of SIG community funding, Jefferson County intends to move toward institutionalizing some of the changes they have achieved in the system of prevention planning, funding, implementation, and monitoring that they developed under SIG.
Related Information
- Substance Use Disorders, and Need for Treatment among Washington State Adults (4.25)
- Risk and Protection Profile for Substance Abuse Prevention for Washington State and its Counties
- Research Based Prevention Outcomes, State Incentive Grants | SIG(4.58)