FY 2004 Continuation Drug-Free Communities Support Program

The Alaska Staff Development Network, the research and training system of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, is the fiscal agent for the Juneau Effective Prevention Project [JEPP]. This coalition serves Juneau, Alaska which is a diverse, land-locked community with over 9,700 children aged 0-19. The general population is about 30,711, of which approximately 21% are Alaskan Native. While urban by Alaska standards, Juneau is, by federal standards, very rural.

The Juneau Effective Prevention coalition's goals are to: 1) reduce substance abuse among youth and, over time, among adults by addressing alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco use through the cross-cutting systems being developed by the Departments of Justice [OJJDP], Education [OSDFS], and Health [SAMHSA] under the Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative; and 2) strengthen the collaboration among communities, governments, and private non-profit agencies to support coalition efforts to prevent and to reduce substance abuse through the Communities in Schools model of resource integration.
To achieve these goals, the Juneau Effective Prevention Project will implement the six strategies based on Safe Schools/Healthy students:
1) develop the JEPP Committee according to the mobilization guidelines in the Drug Free Communities mobilization requirements;
2) design a science-based drug use prevention curriculum, for ages 0-19, that encompasses school educators, community based-organizations, faith community teachers, and parents as the first educators of our children;
3) develop, along with law enforcement and the judiciary, a Student-Family Assistance Program that integrates behavioral health, corrective consequences, and school re-entry support for children who become involved with substance use;
4) create model neighborhood-level, community mobilization teams parallel to strategies 1-3, above, using the local elementary school as a hub for community resources to link prenatal - age 7 early children prevention to JEPP using the Title IV "Foundations to Learning model" of the No Child Left Behind Act;
5) strengthen community mobilization and coalition-building through an annual training institute that recruits and trains new sectors and members of the community in the community prevention strategies [1-4]; while providing continuing education to current members in new prevention programming; and
6) institutionalize the coalition and its cross-cutting prevention network in 2-5, above, through a chartered "Communities in Schools" organization with the JEPP coalition transitioning into its Community-School Board of Directors. CA/NCF