Crossroads Treatment Center in Pierce 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
United Communities Coalition is the name that Crossroads Treatment Center and
its partners chose for the group that directs their SIG activities. Gault Middle
School, in the Tacoma School District, and Keithley Middle School, in the
Franklin-Pierce School District, are the focus of the substance abuse prevention
efforts of the United Communities Coalition SIG project. High rates of poverty
affect students: more than 75% of Gault students and 55% of Keithley students
are eligible for free and reduced lunches, compared to the county rate of 34%.
Gault is located in a culturally diverse, urban neighborhood of Tacoma. Keithley
Middle School is located in a culturally and economically diverse, suburban
neighborhood of unincorporated Parkland.
Prevention History
Prior to SIG, various partnerships were operating to bring substance abuse
prevention services to children in the Tacoma and Franklin-Pierce schools.
Although 22% of Gault sixth graders report prior drug use, and 40% report prior
use of alcohol, and Keithley students averaged 27 ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Other Drug) assessments per year in the two-year period from 1997-1999, with 29
referrals for treatment in that time, no age-appropriate substance abuse
treatment services for teens or younger children were available. Both
communities lacked after school programming for children in the middle school
age group. Existing parenting programs were not designed for parents of middle
school-aged youth or those youth already having problems in school. The United
Communities Coalition of Pierce County was created to develop and implement a
comprehensive plan to wrap at-risk children and their families with multiple
strategies to prevent substance abuse. This project is the first time that all
of the member agencies have worked together as a group. Science-based programs
were introduced to the are through SIG.
Progress toward Community Level Objectives Objective 1: Establish partnerships...
Crossroads Treatment Center, Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Tacoma
Public Schools, Franklin-Pierce School District, Pierce County Human Services,
and the Safe Streets Campaign joined to form the United Communities Coalition of
Pierce County. As its first joint venture, the United Communities Coalition is
providing substance abuse prevention programming at Gault Middle School in the
Tacoma Public Schools and Keithley Middle School in the Franklin-Pierce School
District.
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.
Prevention partners in Pierce County have been using a risk and protective
factor framework since 1996 to plan substance abuse prevention programs. Major
risk factors identified by the coalition in their two school communities include
favorable attitudes toward drug use, early first use, low commitment to school,
low neighborhood attachment, and community disorganization. Every two years
since 1996, the Safe Streets Coalition, Pierce County Human Services, and county
school districts assess county substance abuse prevention needs and resources
using a risk and protective factor framework. Pierce County's fiscal year
starts January 1st, but county profile and Washington State Survey of
Adolescent Health Behavior data are usually not released until later in the
year. This means that the partners generally have to use older data.
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. Three research-based programs,
Families and Schools Together program, Media Sharp, and Project ALERT, were
chosen. Safe School Zones was added to augment those programs and to address
community organization. The package of programs is being tested at Gault and
Keithley middle schools. The plan is to identiFiscal Year effective strategies for
providing comprehensive substance abuse prevention services in Pierce County.
Objective 5: To use common reporting tools...
One of the requirements for participating in the SIG project was to
participate in the Washington State Survey of Adolescent Health Behavior (WSSAHB).
Survey data provide cross-sectional substance abuse prevalence rates and
measures of risk and protective factors among 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade
students. Gault and Keithley middle schools both participate in the survey.
For program level evaluation, United Communities Coalition prevention program
coordinators used the surveys provided in their curricula. Data from the
Families and Schools Together (FAST) program is forwarded to and analyzed by the
Alliance for Children and Families, national providers of FAST training and
materials. Starting with Year 3 of SIG, 2001-2002, Crossroads Treatment Center
will also use the Everest program outcome monitoring system, developed by the
Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Washington Department of Social and
Health Services.
Success Highlights
Crossroads Treatment Center FAST teams have provided two nine-week cycles of
FAST at both middle school sites in Year 2, with active FASTWorks follow-up
groups at both middle schools. All sixth graders at the two schools have
received the Project ALERT curriculum as part of the schools' health science
curricula, and all seventh graders have received Project ALERT follow-up
sessions. FAST/Project ALERT coordinators are fully integrated with school
staff.
Upon request, Crossroads Treatment Center is now using alternative funding to
provide the SIG-style prevention package at one additional Franklin-Pierce
school. Two more Tacoma schools are requesting the same services. Positive
outcomes from the Project ALERT program have led Tacoma Public Schools and the
Franklin-Pierce School District to institute Project ALERT at all of their
middle schools starting in SIG Year 3.
United Communities Coalition 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, the local prevention
community 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.
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: "
Crossroads Treatment Center, Pierce County Executive Summary
of Community-Level Process Evaluation Reports" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-3a (139 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 Pierce County - Crossroads Treatment
Center" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-3b (143 KB)
Click
on the PDF symbol to the left to download the components
of the community plan: "Project Action Plan for
Pierce County - Crossroads Treatment Center." Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-3c (306 KB)
Click on the PDF symbol
to the left to download the report of the first year activities:
"Crossroads Treatment Center, Pierce County Washington
State Incentive Grant 1st year Community - Level Evaluation
1999-2000." Publication Date: 11/2000. Report Number: 4.43-3d (237 KB)
Click
on the PDF symbol to the left to download the report of
the second year activities: "Crossroads
Treatment Center, Pierce County Washington State
Incentive Grant 2nd Year Community - Level Evaluation 2000-2001." Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-3e (248 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: 4.43-3f (108 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 - Pierce County
- Crossroads Treatment" Publication Date: 04/2002. Report Number: 4.43-3g (73 KB)
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Related Information
Link to
website providing additional
information
about Pierce county
For more ways to get in touch with the Department of Social
and Health Services, go to
the DSHS Contact
Information Web page. Technical Site Comments: DSHS Webmaster.
Copyright 2004 Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.
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