University/Schools Alliance Executive Meeting
July 8, 2009 1:00 PM at
UD Cooperative Extension Office

Attending: Harry Baetjer Tower Hill School
Kristen Blanchard SODAT Delaware
Nancy Chase UD Wellspring
Liz Dubravcic DE Public Health
Cindy Genau UD Coop. Ext.
Howard Isenberg Open Door
Fred MacCormack Wellness Centers
George Meldrum Nemours Foundation
Yvonne Nass Parent Education Consulting
Janet Ray DE DOE
John Ray DE DOE
Kathy Ward YMCA Resource Center

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

Grant Discussions: The June 10^th minutes were approved.

DFC: The 2009 budget was reviewed and approved. USA is in its 9^th year now.

Teen Dating Violence- Awards for this grant to provide insights into teen perceptions of dating violence and institutional responses to it will probably not be announced until September.

Teen Driving-There has been no notification for this grant application which would fund the addition of more parent modules to the WSTW Smart Drive program and a coordinated media program.

STOP Act- The awards for this program will be announced by the end of September. It would fund enhancements to the WSTW Smart Drive program, Town Hall Meetings and an alcohol-related version of the game-show activity “What do you Know?”

College Alcohol Use-A decision was made not to pursue this resource at this time, but to work towards possibly applying next year.

SPF-SIG-Delaware has been awarded this grant for the next 5 years. The grant provides for the creation of a statewide prevention plan to address the state priorities of underage drinking, marijuana use, and prescription drug abuse across the life span. A community coalition in each sub-state planning area (Wilmington, the rest of New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County) will develop a corollary plan specific to their community, select appropriate programs and practices, and monitor progress in their area, plus work with the other three coalitions to develop some state-wide initiatives. The 4 coalitions involved will be University/Schools Alliance (USA) for New Castle County-outside of Wilmington, West End House & LACC inside of Wilmington, Dover’s Caring Community Coalition in Kent County and the 1^st State Community Action Agency in Sussex County. The USA Executive Board will now be responsible for our portion of the money and activities for the next 5 years. USA will also be able to hire a Coordinator for this project and use some of the funds to hire a graphics coordinator. In addition to all of the administrative funds, USA will have almost $300,000 with which to fund programming and activities through a formal RFP process. That means that all members are needed to attend regular board meetings, the Strategic Planning meeting in August and the Policy Summit in September.

Strategic Planning Meeting-This will take place on Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. The location will be Buena Vista Conference Center. All members of the USA Board should plan to attend this meeting.

We are still in need of youth and religious/fraternal members for the USA Board. John Ray suggested that we go to the State Student Council to get youth. He also suggested that we contact the principal from Christiana High School, Noreen LaSorsa. Kathy Ward will check to see if the Governor of the Youth & Governor Program is interested. Roberta will contact NCCCP and Rick Gregory from the New Castle County Police Department. Nancy Chase suggested “Mike” who is the coordinator for MPHC at UD, an African-American Greek organization, and also Matt Leno, who oversees Greek Life at UD. Howard Isenberg will talk to Mike Barbieri. Janet Ray suggested that we contact Chris Miller from Red Clay; she is now the Title 4 coordinator. We still need to have more collaboration with other colleges; i.e. Wesley, Wilmington University, Del Tech, Delaware State and maybe Arcadia University.

Today we are asking you to suggest people to invite to the August 5^th meeting. If you know of any geographical representatives, such as city mangers from New Castle County-outside of Wilmington, please let us know.

Upcoming Events/Activities:

OPEI Youth Summit-This will take place on Saturday, August 8^th at the Double Tree Hotel in Wilmington. Mary will represent USA at this event. One of the youth workshops will be focused on teen prescription drug abuse.

Parent Chats-“Transition to High School”-We have 2 planned for August 19^th, one at Tower Hill School and the other at Christiana High School. The panel for Tower Hill will be Harry Baetjer, Yvonne Nass, Angela Seguin and Nicole Solomon. As of yet, we do not have a panel for Christiana High School. Harry will talk to parents about preparing their students for high school, how to get them ready, what they need and how to get them organized. Yvonne will talk about parenting their students. Nicole will speak about parent issues, drugs & alcohol and awareness.

We need to advertise these events! So far, we only have one parent signed up.

USA/DDATA Policy Summit on Substance Abuse in Delaware- USA will be collaborating with the DDATA group and Kids Count to sponsor this event. We will be sharing the statistics on substance abuse in Delaware, stating the policy in Delaware and looking for consensus on the potential direction that we need to be going in. The Summit will take place sometime during the 3^rd week of September (21^st-25^th). No location has been determined as of yet.

While USA had been hoping to get Governor Markell to attend, it was suggested that his wife, Carla Markell, be asked to convene the Summit.

The Board suggested that we have a small select group of policy people at the Summit to optimize targeted discussions. There will be an information session, followed by break outs into smaller groups for discussion. The groups could be broken down by issues around the data which will be presented. We have data for arrests-juvenile & adult, treatment-juvenile & adult and deaths/trauma/poisoning, as well as the school survey data. Discussion groups will also be provided with a menu of programs, policies and practices in their area which have been found effective elsewhere.

The goals for this summit are: 1. to educate people so we’re all on the same page
2. To bring consensus on the

A sub-committee was formed to plan this meeting. Our volunteers for the sub-committee are Janet Ray, Yvonne Nass, George Meldrum and Howard Isenberg. George volunteered to hold the meeting at Nemours at 252 Chapman Rd. Suite 200, Newark, DE. The date for this will be sent out by Roberta.

The next meeting:

Wed. August 5, 2009
8:30 AM-4:00 PM
at Buena Vista Conference Center
661 S. DuPont Hwy.
New Castle, DE 19720