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September 21, 2005
Hello Everyone:
I hope you will share in our excitement. We just received the news from Congressman Jerry Costello that the Alton Youth Development Strategy Partnership, which some of you may know as the Alton Weed & Seed Strategy, Communities that Care, Youth Development Strategy, was awarded a $100,000.00 Drug Free Communities Support Grant. The Federal Award is funded through the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Drug Free Communities Support Program Grants. The grant is $100,000.00 per year for five years, with the possibility of renewal for an additional five years.
The Drug Free Communities Support Program Grants (DFCSP) is an initiative to: reduce substance abuse among youth, help community coalitions strengthen collaboration, enhance intergovernmental collaboration, cooperation and coordination; enable communities to conduct data-driven, research based prevention planning, and provide communities with technical assistance, guidance and financial support. DFCSP has two major goals: to reduce substance use among youth and, over time, among adults by addressing the factors in a community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse and to establish and strengthen collaboration among communities, private non-profit agencies and Federal, state, local and tribal governments to support the efforts of community coalitions to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth.
Initially funded by the Alton Weed & Seed Strategy, The Alton Youth Development Strategy Partnership brings together over 100 partners who have collaborated for over three years to make this a reality. Thanks to all of you who attended meetings and exercised patience as we have evolved. For her excellence and expertise in walking us through the “Communities that Care” model, many thanks to Michelle Duhart. For leading the tedious grant writing process, special thanks to: Alton School District, especially Kristie Baumgartner and Cindy Inman, Anne Tyree & Leah Chandrl, Community Counseling Center, Jean Schram, Chestnut Health Systems, Colleen Gaskill, Alton YWCA, Chuck Parr, Riverbend Head Start, Allison Luebbers, Call for Help, Rita Backstrom, City of Alton, Development & Housing, Margaret Renken, Alton resident and parent. We couldn't have done this without any of them. If you have further questions, or would like to be involved, please call me.
Thank you!
Bruce D. Bertolino
Alton Youth Development Strategy Partnership
Alton Weed & Seed Strategy
COMMUNITIES THAT CARE®
Alton Youth Development Strategy
Communities That Care® is a prevention-planning system that presents an incredible opportunity for action for those of us who believe in our youth. It will require the commitment of dedicated community leaders to coordinate existing initiatives and future planning efforts.
The Communities That Care® system takes a practical, research-based, outcome-focused approach that involves the whole community in promoting positive youth development by reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors. This system can help our community use prevention science research to enhance how our community, schools, families and youth groups operate to prevent youth behavior problems and promote healthy development. It can also help us use our money, efforts and energy efficiently and effectively by using objective data to determine priorities, implementing programs that have been proven to work and providing our community the tools necessary to measure and track results.
Problems of adolescent delinquency, violence, alcohol and other drug abuse, school dropout and pregnancy disrupt the lives and threaten the futures of too many of our young people. A growing body of research in the field of prevention science now gives us information on how to protect against problem behaviors by enhancing protective factors in children’s lives. This past school year, the Alton School District surveyed 500 middle school students. The results of that survey will assist with the development of our outcome-focused strategic plan. Communities That Care® has prepared a report for us outlining the risk and protective factors of our Alton youth. It is available here in pdf format. (Note: this is a large file - it will take 8 to 10 minutes to open with a dial-up connection.)
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