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Executive Summary
Pacific County Kid Care, a collaboration of Pacific County Health and Human Services and Willapa Children's Services, 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
During SIG's second year of community grantee funding, the four participating Pacific County school districts offered several programs for fourth through sixth grade students; a county-wide Adventure Day for seventh graders took place; a parenting program continued to be tested; troubled youth took part in experiential outdoor education; and seventy community members attended an informational forum on risk factors and prevention.
Prevention History
Prior to the State Incentive Grant, prevention services were primarily provided through mini grants to the school districts, with other prevention projects being tried periodically. Following changes in health care, and the first results of the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behaviors (WSSAHB), extensive community networking was performed to study and address health issues in Pacific County. Substance abuse was identified as a major concern. Pacific County Kid Care, the local SIG project, was formed to provide a comprehensive prevention plan for the county, including science-based programming. SIG introduced science-based prevention programs to Pacific County.
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.
Pacific County Kid Care partners with a broad spectrum of agencies, both public and private, to provide substance abuse prevention services throughout the county.
Objective 2: To use a risk and protective factor framework to develop a community prevention action plan...
The county's needs assessment traditionally uses the risk and protective factor model to prioritize needs. Pacific County Kid Care identified risk factors to address during its SIG prevention project, including community laws and norms favorable toward use and early initiation of the problem behavior among others. Protective factors they plan to develop in their community were also identified.
Objective 3: To participate in joint community risk and protective factor and resource assessment...
Every two years, Pacific County partners assess the substance abuse prevention needs of their community. Resource assessment is published as the Pacific County Resource Directory, by Community Mobilization against Substance Abuse. One consistent finding is that the needs of Pacific County residents far outstrip the resources available, both funding resources and professional personnel capable of providing services in the community. Pacific County Health and Human Services acted as the lead agency in the pilot test of the collaborative needs assessment sponsored by SIG.
Objective 4: To select and implement effective prevention actions...
The SIG process encouraged the choice of programs shown through published research to be effective in different locales and with multiple populations. These are known as research-based programs. At four elementary schools in the county, Pacific County Kid Care implemented the After School Activities Program, with I'm Special as its research-based programming component. All fifth-graders in participating districts were taught Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies. Preparing for the Drug Free Years was offered for interested parents in two locations, one serving the north county, and one the south. Selected students exhibiting behavioral problems in school participated in an experiential outdoor education program, Youth Adventures.
Objective 5: To use common reporting tools...
To determine community level prevalence rates and risk and protective factor levels, Pacific County SIG schools participate in the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behavior. Program level data on risk and protective factors is gathered using pre-tests and post-tests. Some of these test results are entered into the Everest program outcome monitoring web-based database, developed by the Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, and tested by SIG community grantees.
Conclusions
Pacific County Kid Care SIG Project has had a large impact on the way Pacific County plans and implements substance abuse prevention programming. For the first time, prevention efforts are coordinated on a countywide basis, with research-based programming provided in each of the four participating school districts. One of the greatest successes of Pacific County Kid Care in SIG Year 2 was the spread of awareness in their community about the need for substance abuse prevention. Pacific County Kid Care held an open house educational session for the community that explained risk factors and showed how the county compared to the state rates for each domain. Seventy community members attended. This forum was part of the pilot test of the SIG-sponsored collaborative needs assessment.
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)