Last year, Children and Family Services partnered with Communities That Care of Knox and Sullivan counties to secure a $110,000 state grant to pay for drug and alcohol prevention programs aimed at eighth-graders and freshman in local schools.
Tina Hidde, coordinator for the Communities That Care initiative, said the group used a separate $100,000 grant from the United Way to begin surveying middle-school and high school students on their involvement with the risky behaviors in 2013, and earlier this year began to implement programs to discourage them from getting involved with the behavior in the first place.
Data collected both locally and nationally show that incoming freshman are at the most risk when it comes to experimenting with drugs and alcohol, Hidde said.
Knox County ranks fifth in the state in underage drinking, tobacco use and marijuana, and second when it comes to experimenting with methamphetamine — and is dangerously close to being first in that category.
“We've been working with the schools to address the drug and alcohol use because our kids smoke, they drink and they use marijuana at a much higher rate here than the state's average usage," she said.
Initiative leaders searched for established, evidence-based programming in hopes of realigning the target audience to the most at-risk youth, but Hidde said they found next to nothing addressing the problem for youngsters.
Programs to assist individuals recovering from an addiction are plentiful, she said, but resources were limited when looking to proactively avoid the problem all together.
“We took a look around to see what resources were available, and we found that there are just not a lot of evidence-based programs or resources available for our kids,” Hidde said. “So we've been working in the schools and we've been training with faith partners to become reference sources to help connect anyone at risk with the resources they need.
“We have a problem in Knox County, starting with the prevention methods, they haven't worked so far,” she said. “So we've implemented these programs in the schools and made evidence-based resources available and after a year of implementation we'll review to see if they fit our community.”
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