University/Schools Alliance
Executive Meeting
November 11, 2009 3:30 at UD Coop. Ext. Office

Attending:
Harry Baetjer, Tower Hill School
Michael Barbieri, Crossroads & State Legislator
Kristen Blanchard, SODAT Delaware
Rosemary Brooks, Sanford School Parent
Liz Dubravcic, Public Health
Cindy Genau, UD Cooperative Extension
Howard Isenberg, Open Door, Inc.
Kathy Ward, YMCS Resource Center

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

Discussions:
DFC Grant Update: USA has received permission to apply to carry over unspent funds from the previous Drug Free Communities grant. The amount available to be carried over will be $6877.52. The plan for the carry over funds will need to be approved by the budget office for the Drug Free Communities Program. It was agreed by the Board to allocate this money to this Policy Summit. There is some money to put towards the physicians’ conference also planned. It was also decided that Buena Vista was the preferred location.
The Policy Summit agenda will include:

· Presentation on State of Delaware—needs and resources

· Presentation of potential solutions being used effectively in other places

· Breakout sessions to identify priority problems and potential solutions which might work in Delaware.

Liz Dubravcic suggested giving attendees a techno notebook with a list of resources in it.
Roberta suggested asking Carla Markell to be the facilitator. She, along with other governors’ spouses, is a member of Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free, an initiative sponsored by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dedicated to keeping children ages 9-15 alcohol free. The next steps are to identify potential dates and to complete the application to use the carry over funds.

SPF-SIG-Erica Melman , formerly of the Office of Prevention and Early Intervention, has accepted a position at the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health as Project Manager for the SPF-SIG grant. Sandy Clark (OPEI) who attended our last USA meeting just announced that she will be retiring as of Nov. 20^th. Ashley Biden will possibly attend the USA meetings as a representative of OPEI, for at least the next 2 months while she is an intern with Dana Sawyer at OPEI.

College Meeting: USA will invite representatives of other Delaware colleges and universities-UD, Delaware State, Wesley, Wilmington University, Goldey Beacon and Del Tech and others—to meet and discuss common issues and potential solutions. This meeting will be planned for early December.

Needs Assessment: A Powerpoint presentation developed recently for the Advisory Council of the SPF-SIG grant was presented and the Delaware Prevention Network Alliance was shown as a method of reviewing the level of need for substance abuse prevention in Delaware. The presentation points out that substance use is not just a problem of youth and young adults, but that it continues into adulthood and the years of parenthood in Delaware. After viewing the slides, the Board concurred that policy changes would be needed to address the level of need—that programs are good, but can only impact a small part of the population, while policy and practice changes would impact more. The presentation is available (along with other resources) at http://www.udel.edu/delawaredata/powerpoint.htm .

By-Laws: USA has functioned well for 10 years without By-Laws, but is now taking steps to ensure continuity in leadership, membership and the decision-making process. A draft of simple by-laws for a prevention coalition was presented at the meeting. A version of those by-laws will be sent out as a separate email for members to edit as they see fit and return, and will be discussed at the December meeting.

Zero Tolerance: One of the issues which was discussed at the August strategic planning session was the fact that currently in the school system when students are caught using alcohol or drugs, they are expelled; this, in some cases, removes them from potential services, and too frequently, they do not return to school and end up in more trouble. It was recently learned that State Representative Mike Barbieri is working with a task force to revise the state zero tolerance laws which mandate expulsion for drug use, weapon carrying and specific other offenses. Mike Barbieri said that the task force is working on three initiatives:

1. Re-writing the law to increase discretion in sentencing guidelines

2. Establishing procedures and processes to better ensure equitable treatment

3. Looking at alternatives such as counseling to enable students to stay in school.

The next USA meeting is December 9^th at 3:30 PM at Arcadia University, 2^nd floor.

Please respond to the upcoming email concerning the by-laws.

Have a great Thanksgiving!