University/Schools Alliance Executive Board Meeting
Annual Strategic Planning Meeting
August 11, 2010 8:30-4:00 at Buena Vista

Attending: Harry Baetjer, Tower Hill School
Kristen Blanchard, SODAT Delaware
Nancy Chase, UD Wellspring
Nicole Freedman, YMCA Resource Center
Cindy Genau, UD Cooperative Extension Office
Howard Isenberg, Open Door, Inc.
Fred MacCormack, DHSS Wellness Centers
Yvonne Nass, Parent Education Consultant
Libby Thomas, DOE
Lorie Tudor, DPNA
Jo-ann West, Retired Salesianum School Nurse
Jaime Wolhar, Delaware National Guard

Staff Attending: Roberta Gealt, USA Project Director
Mary Perno, USA Project Coordinator

Discussions:

On October 1st, USA will begin its tenth and final year of the DFC grant.

CDAS (Center for Drug & Alcohol Studies) will have a brand new home soon, by the end of August. The next USA meeting will be in our new conference room. There will be free parking in the back of our office. CDAS is located in the back of the building, at 257 E. Main St. Suite 110, Newark, DE. We will have brand new facilities, but possibly less space than we currently have.

Activities:USA had a good year with many activities, but not any parent chats, family day participation, how to chaperone training or school data events as projected in our strategic plan. We did, however, have several On Applebee Pond trainings, Town Hall Meeting training, a Policy Summit and a Physicians’ Conference.

Outcomes:We've attended many meetings and reached out to policy makers. Michael Barbieri introduced the social host bill into legislature this year. It didn't pass, so it will need to be re-introduced when the next session opens. The three other bills of interest that were introduced in the past legislative session were the Dram Shop, medical marijuana and controlled pharmaceuticals. The controlled pharmaceuticals are the only one that passed.

USA presented data at two Kids Caucus meetings and luncheons this year.

USA has increased collaboration and efforts to network. USA has been working with the Southern New Castle County Coalition and Penny Dryden in Wilmington as well as state agencies such as DSAMH with Isabel Rivera-Green and OPEI with Yvonne Bunch. We are also collaborating with Delaware Prevention Network Alliance on some new initiatives.

The Office of Prevention and Early Intervention and Child Mental Health have merged together into the Division of Prevention and Behavioral Health Services. Martha Gregor is the new person in charge of this prevention for the Division.

The statistics show that in Delaware Alcohol use is stable, marijuana is up, about 24% of the kids are current users, and prescription drugs are down slightly amongst youth. Delaware is no longer #1 is marijuana, but we are second or third in the U.S.

DOE is returning the last three years of funding back to the CDC for Youth HIV prevention program, which includes funding for the School Health Profiles and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and for Janet Ray's position. Delaware is currently 5th nation in HIV-AIDS rates. Delaware is currently second nationally in the percentage of high school students who report being sexually active.

Strategic Planning:

Needs Assessment: CDAS has been conducting the Delaware Community Survey, assessing community perceptions of drug and alcohol problems throughout the state and has 569 completed surveys. We now have enough of them to start to identify communities with at least 30 surveys. Currently, the communities that have data are Dover, Georgetown, Seaford, Newark, Wilmington, Clayton& Smyrna. Most of these communities are concerned with alcohol and marijuana, and the drug and alcohol consequences of dropping out of school and going to prison.

Should we be collecting data on something else? A parent survey would fill a gap for data on parent behaviors and perceptions, as all we currently have is student perceptions of their parents’ behaviors and perceptions.

Capacity Building: It was agreed upon that USA needs a Facebook page. Mary will set that up tomorrow.

· Roberta will give Mary a link to a parent survey.

· It was suggested that we import the e-mail list to find people

· Link DE Community Survey

· Either daily or weekly, post a new statistic

· Friends with parents groups

OHS has facebook and twitter accounts. They also have a new PIO.

DEA Drug Collection: The DEA drug collection is big and getting bigger. Mary and the DE National Guard will also be working at one of the sites on Saturday, September 25, 2010. This day will be for pills only, no inhalants, not liquids, no injectables. The sites will be at State Troop 1-A Barracks, New Castle County Police HQ and in Rehoboth Beach. Dover will not be a site this time because it is also Nascar Race weekend.

It was suggested that USA make up a slip of paper with a message to give each person that drops off the medications such as "Lock up the liquor, put away the pills" "1 out of 4 Delaware kids use prescription drugs, you just help to make them safer".

Parent Chats: These chats started 6 years ago. USA will focus on one event this year in January to address spring parties spanning spring break, proms and graduation.

Town Hall Meetings: USA held these as a group for New Castle County initially, but in more recent years school communities seem to have more success than USA did holding a county-wide meeting. The funding for these meetings are every other year, 2010, 2012, etc, but the Division of Prevention and Behavioral Health Services and the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health may be willing to sponsor them in odd-numbered years also. It was suggested that we video tape these meetings and then put short blurbs of them on facebook.

We need to re-think our strategy for media on the THM’s, but the training for those providing the THM’s was successful and useful, and should be repeated in the coming year.

Health Fairs:It was decided we should continue participation in school health fairs, as it's a great way to keep our name in the public eye, especially the corporate health and safety fairs.

Family Day: USA did not participate in this last year. In the past, we had the governor signed a proclamation and we promoted it through the schools.

Kids who eat dinner with their families are less likely to use drugs was the slogan that we used for the first and second years. There seemed to be more publicity back then, as well. If we participate in this in 2011, we should consider collaboration with Nemours. We can at least put it on facebook and the USA web sites for 2010. The YMCA would also like to help promote Family Day.

On Applebee Pond Puppets:Mary & Kathy go to the schools that are interested and train the kids who are 6th-12th grades. The kids love it, and the school that do it, love it. The problem had been with continuity of advisors. OAP reduces intention of use and increases knowledge, so it will be continued. We could investigate the possibility of giving community service hours for service.

Advocacy on Legislature: Michael Barbieri will re-introduce the Social Host to legislature in the coming session.USA could do parent focus groups around how parents feel about other adults providing their children with alcohol, and continue to advocate. "We're trying to support parental rights".

We also need to start educating state legislators before they return back in session. We need to set up an "Advocacy Day" with the speaker of the house to educate the legislators before the bill is introduced.

School Administration Strategic Planning Training:This will give schools data and teach them how to use it to advocate and to plan strategically.

Policy Summit: This will take place on September 20th at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts-which will be a draw for people to attend. This meeting will replace the September 14th DDATA meeting. Carla Markell will be our keynote speaker for this event.

Physician's Conference: We plan to hold this at the Ammon Center at the Christiana Care Hospital in Newark. The plan is to have Joan Chatterton and Margot Waitz as our speakers. To date, we do not have anyone to speak about SBIRT. Nancy Chase said that she would look for someone to speak about that. We plan to hold this in the evening and serve food. Our goal for this event is to

· Raise awareness

· Physicians to recognize their role as gatekeepers

· Network with behavioral health care providers

· Give specific skilled development

When they leave, we will be giving them a flash drive to take home with all of the day's information on it.

Newsletters: Continue to do them, but put them on Facebook, do blogs and update regularly. They will also still be sent via e-mail to our contact list as a pdf file that is printable.

USA Calendar:

August:

· Message to promote Family Day

September

· September 8, meeting for new DFC Coalition Grant

· Message about Homecoming safety

· Policy Summit, late in Sept.

· DEA Drug Take Back, Sept. 25

· Family Day, Sept. 27

October

· School Admin Training, late Oct.

· YELL Conference, Oct. 27th

November

· Technical training in Media Advocacy from CADCA

· Start warnings about drinking alcohol during the holidays

· American Medicine Chest Drug Take Back, Nov. 13th

· Roberta will do a presentation for state PTA

December

January 2011

· Parent Program about Senior Week & Prom

February

· CADCA Conference, National Harbor, MD

March

· Town Hall Meetings

· Prom safety message

April

· Prevention Forum

· Fatherhood Conference

May

June

July

August

· Message about Family Day (held in Sept)