The Drug Free Communities Coalition is part of a federal effort to reduce youth substance use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. The Coalition represents a number of partnering agencies including schools, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, media, parents, youth, state and local agencies, and civic and volunteer groups.
The Coalition has two main goals:
Establish and strengthen collaboration among communities, private nonprofit agencies and Federal, State and local governments to support the efforts of community coalitions to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth
Reduce substance abuse 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.
The Waukesha County Drug Free Communities Coalition is a countywide network of individuals and organizations who are committed to the reduction of underage use of alcohol and drugs. The organization is a 2008 recipient of a federal Drug Free Communities grant, funded through the Office of the National Drug Control policy.
Grantees are located in all fifty states. A grant award of $125,000, renewable for ten years, will provide an opportunity to build a firm base for proactive work to extend across the entire county.
The grant’s focus is to build a sustainable coalition that will work to reduce substance abuse among Waukesha youth. It has a strong evaluation component which focuses on tracking four core elements: age at onset of use, 30 day usage, perception of parental disapproval, and perception of danger or harm.
Initial data for the grant utilized the Waukesha School District’s Social Norms, Safety, Academics, and ATOD Survey which is administered to 100% of their students in grades seven through twelve generally every two years.
Presently the Coalition has one hundred plus members representing one or more of the twelve community sectors required by the grant: organizations involved in substance abuse, health care professionals, civic and volunteer groups, state or local government agencies, law enforcement agencies, media, business community, schools, faith-based community, parents, youth, and youth-serving organizations.
The Waukesha Drug Free Communities Coalition has been in place since 2005, as concern about the growing use of alcohol and drugs by youth. Using data collected over a ten-year period by the School District of Waukesha, through a survey completed by students from middle school through high school, this initial Coalition was able to document the increase in use as students passed through middle school.
This information led this Coalition to apply for a DFC grant in 2006. Although a full DFC grant was not awarded at that time, the group was awarded a mentor grant with IMPACT, a Milwaukee based prevention organization.
With the help of Duncan Shrout, Director of Government Relations at IMPACT and additional IMPACT staff, the Waukesha group was able to better position themselves to apply again, while building a countywide consistency through sponsoring town hall meetings addressing underage usage.
In 2007, the Waukesha County Drug Free Communities Coalition, through the Waukesha County UW-Extension office, again applied for a DFC grant, which was awarded in September 2008. The grant was renewed for a second year in September 2009.
Waukesha County UW-Extension serves as coordinator and fiscal agent of Waukesha County’s Drug Free Communities grant. Drug Free Communities (DFC) is a federal grant-funded program through the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). UW-Extension provides equal opportunities in employment and programming, including Title IX and ADA.