Drug-Free Communities Support Program Application for Continuation Funding

WABC-Central City Comprehensive Community Center (5C's) is the fiscal agent for the Third Ward Coalition on Substance Abuse. The coalition was formed to provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration among individuals and agencies that work with the at-risk youth population in Houston, TX, Harris County's Greater Third Ward Community. This urban area has a population of 1,819,120 that is predominately Hispanic and African-American. The two goals of the coalition are to: 1) reduce alcohol and drug use and associated behavior problems among school-aged youth; and 2) strengthen the community coalition. To achieve these goals, the coalition will implement the following strategies:
1) increase and strengthen family management skills by providing parenting classes and communications skills-building classes for the youth and their parents;
2) increase youth resiliency through youth programming/activities focused on drug awareness and developing effective communication skills;
3) plan and execute a full-scale recruitment campaign targeting individuals in the community, hosting information dissemination sessions with identified, key stakeholders;
4) raise the community consciousness about the correlation between youth substance abuse and youth involvement in the juvenile justice system;
5) conduct educational training sessions focusing on promoting awareness while identifying, defining, and/or re-evaluating community needs; and
6) provide a forum for the dissemination of information to youth and community leaders regarding drug abuse prevention, at-risk behavior patterns, and safe/drug-free community initiatives.
CA/NCF