support grant

The Warwick Valley Prevention Coalition has been awarded a Drug-Free Communities Support Program grant in the amount of $125,000 by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The funding was announced by U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan.

“Addiction is tearing Hudson Valley families apart and stealing the bright futures of our kids with gut-wrenching frequency. I’m pushing to end that vicious cycle,” Ryan said in announcing the grant. “I’m proud to deliver this crucial funding that will help prevent addiction in the Hudson Valley, and look forward to continuing to work with the Warwick Valley Prevention Coalition as we fight to end youth drug use.”

The Coalition serves the Town of Warwick, a community of 32,027. The target population for this project is Warwick Valley School District youth ages 12-18, approximately 1,870 students.

Objectives

The objectives for the first year of the project, to be completed by Sept. 29, 2024, are:

To increase community involvement to impact Warwick youth substance use from 15 to 18 members per meeting as measured by coalition meeting attendance sheets;

To increase active participation of Warwick 7th to 12th graders in coalition activities from 12 (baseline average) to 15 members per meeting as measured by youth coalition meeting attendance sheets;

To increase by 5 percent the perception of risk associated with youth alcohol use among Warwick 8th-12th graders from baseline 70.1 percent for 8th, 73.9 percent for 10th, and 72.1 percent for 12th graders; and

To increase by 5 percent the perception of risk associated with youth marijuana use among Warwick 8th-12th graders from baseline 62.1 percent for 8th, 47.5 percent for 10th and 37 percent for 12th graders.

The coalition will achieve its goals byi mplementing these strategies: providing information, enhancing skills, providing support, reducing access/enhancing barriers, changing consequences, changing physical design, and modifying/changing policies.

“Through our community collaborations and these environmental strategies, we will increase community capacity to prevent and reduce youth alcohol and marijuana use and build on previous successes that include passage of the Orange County Social Host and Tobacco 21 laws and engaging youth in substance abuse prevention efforts,” the coalition said in its application for the grant.”

The grant was one of 164 new Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program awards for Fiscal Year 2023.

‘Whole-of-community approach’

“Responding to the addiction and overdose epidemic requires a strengthened, whole-of-community approach, and the contributions of community coalitions constitute a critical part of the Nation’s substance use prevention infrastructure,” Rahul Gupta, the director of the the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to Ryan in announcing the award. “Evidence-based programs with funding reaching directly to community coalitions via DFCs serve as the best tool to significantly lower the prevalence of past 30-day youth use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and the misuse of prescription drugs.”

Coalition officials could not be reach at press time.

- Bob Quinn