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Case Study 

Snoqualmie Valley Community Network

Executive Summary

Snoqualmie Valley Community Network in King County 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
Snoqualmie Valley is located in eastern King County. Seventy percent of its 35,000 residents live in unincorporated areas. Two school districts within the valley are involved in SIG-funded programs: Snoqualmie Valley School District in the south and Riverview School District in the north, with the first having a more extensive prevention history than the latter. Friends of Youth and Children's Services of Snoqualmie Valley are the only two prevention service providers available in the area.

Prevention History
Substance abuse prevention efforts began in Snoqualmie Valley during the early 1990s. Coalitions were formed and programs were organized. Most prevention programs were presented in the schools. However, funding was lost, leaders left or began working on other projects, and attention was turned to other issues. In 1998, a substance abuse prevention coalition was formed with the guidance of the Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, including many people and organizations that had been active in the early 1990s. The two private, non-profit organizations offering prevention services in the Valley have both been involved in the substance abuse coalition: Children's Services of Sno-Valley and Friends of Youth. Both school districts have representatives at the meetings. The schools provide prevention services for students, such as, Partners in Prevention and Teens as Teachers. The substance abuse coalition is familiar with the concept of using data to guide prevention planning and with program evaluation. SIG introduced the concept of selecting science-based prevention programs based on prioritized risk and protective factors to the coalition.

Progress toward 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.

SIG's requirement of partnership development led Snoqualmie Valley to develop a coalition of the Community Network, prevention service providers, and schools. This helped introduce schools to prevention providers and research-based programs, as well as the use of the school survey, the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behavior, and data for planning prevention services.

Objectives 2 and 3: Use a risk and protective factor framework for planning and participate in joint community risk and protective factor and resource assessment.

Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, the local prevention service providers, and one of the two school districts in the SIG project were already familiar with the risk and protective factor framework. SIG introduced risk and protective factors to one school district. SIG also brought a more comprehensive picture of prevention to the valley, from assessment to program selection and provision. Efforts of schools and prevention service providers became integrated.

Some representatives of Snoqualmie Valley's SIG project participated in King County's spring 2001 SIG-sponsored collaborative needs assessment. Results were not found to be locally relevant.

Objective 4: 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. SIG introduced the use of research-based programs to one of the two school districts in the valley. Prevention providers were already familiar with research-based program. The research-based programs that Snoqualmie Valley selected to address their prioritized risk and protective factors include the following:

• Life Skills Training
• Mentoring
• Family Support Home Visitation Program
• Strengthening Families
• Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families

Other, less well researched programs were also used as part of the prevention infrastructure.

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. Both school districts participated in the WSSAHB. One prevention program, Life Skills Training, used Everest pre- and post-tests. Others used evaluation instruments that were developed by program designers or alternative methods of feedback.

Conclusion
Key achievements under the SIG project were the creation of the SIG coalition, which will reportedly continue after SIG funding ends; the introduction of research-based programs and the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behavior in Riverview School District; and the provision of prevention services to students and parents who otherwise would not have been exposed to prevention concepts. The Snoqualmie Valley Community Network's SIG project 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, Snoqualmie Valley intends to move toward institutionalizing some of the changes they achieved in the system of prevention planning, funding, implementation, and monitoring that they developed under SIG.

Download Community Report
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download the brief description to the achievements and challenges experienced in implementing science based prevention in this community: "Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, King County Executive Summary of Community-Level Process Evaluation Reports" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13a (144 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download a description of the prevention activities and the main community partners: "Community Project Description for Kings County - City of Othello." Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13b (149 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download the components of the community plan: "Project Action Plan for Kings County - Snoqualmie Valley Community Network" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13c (499 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download the report of the first year activities: "Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, Kings County Washington State Incentive Grant 1st year Community - Level Evaluation 1999-2000." Publication Date: 11/2000. Report Number: 4.43-13d (234 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download the report of the second year activities: "Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, Kings County Washington State Incentive Grant 2nd Year Community - Level Evaluation 2000-2001." Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13e (222 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download data on changes in risk and protection factors for prevention program participants: "Program Outcomes" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13f (109 KB)
	Click on the PDF symbol to the left to download data on changes in trends of risk and protection for the entire community: "Community Outcomes Report - Kings County - Snoqualmie Valley Community Network" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-13g (76 KB) To view this Portable Document Format (PDF) you may experience errors or unexpected behavior while opening or reading the file you downloaded. Therefore, we suggest that you always use the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Persons with disabilities may call to request a paper copy.

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Modified: Wednesday October 11 2006

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