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FY 2003 Drug Free Communities Support Program Application for Continuation Funding

Award Information

Award #
2001-JN-FX-0032
Location
Awardee County
El Paso
Congressional District
Status
Closed
Funding First Awarded
2001

Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2001, $100,000)

R. E. Thomason Hospital is the fiscal agent for the Rio Grande Safe Communities Coalition. The coalition was formed to provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration among individuals and between agencies that work with the at-risk youth population in the target area near El Paso, Texas. This urban area has a population of 717,211 that is predominately Hispanic. 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 on the development of effective peer, team, and communication skills;
3) plan and execute a full-scale recruitment campaign targeting individuals in the community and hosting media and information dissemination sessions with identified key-stakeholders;
4) raise the community consciousness on 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 the community needs;
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; and
7) expand the Bi-National model by continuing meetings and focus groups with Mexican counterparts.CA/NCF

Date Created: July 29, 2002