BAY AREA COUNCIL ON DRUGS & ALCOHOL INC

Geographic areas served: Southeast Harris County, Galveston County, Brazoria County and Matagorda County

Programs: Bacoda's youthworks program served 8,689 youth and adults during the fiscal year. Youthworks provides prevention education utilizing the samsha approved,evidence-based,internationally recognized curriculum positive action. Youthworks' prevention specialists facilitate the character building curriculum to at-risk youth in a group setting on school campuses and community sites across southeast harris, galveston, brazoria and matagorda counties. Postive action is based on the intuitive philosophy that we feel good about ourselves when we do positive actions. Positive action also has a family component that is offered to the parents/guardians and siblings of the youth served in the program. Additionally, the program also provides presentations and alternative activities at schools, community sites and events, such as health fairs. The presentations include factual information on alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and may include a powerpoint presentation and literature regarding a specific drug or other substance use issues. Alternative activities are hands-on activities designed to demonstrate that indiviuals, peers, families and communities can have fun without the use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs. To request services in your community or to volunteer please contact the youthworks community specialist at 1-800-510- 3111.

bacoda's coalition department is a group of strategic collaborative programs that implement community-level prevention activities in order to affect positive change in the target community. A "coalition" is a group of individuals and organizations with a common interest that agree to work together toward a common goal. Bacoda provides coordination, leadership, and administration to four community coalitions that serve a total of six counties along the texas gulf coast. Thees programs exist to serve community-wide efforts to prevent and reduce the harmful impact of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse accross the life span; from youth to seniors. Each coalition uses the nationally recognized strategic prevention framework model to assess and prioritize local problems, mobilize community resources to address the problems, develop formalize prevention plans and strategies, and finally implement and evelauate the activities conducted to carry out those strategies. Specifically, the coalitions implement the "seven strategies for community change": providing information; enhancing skills; providing support;enhancing access/reducung barriers; changing consequences (incentives/disincentives); physical design; and modifying/changing policies (source: casca national coalition institute). These strategies are then apllied to most vulnerable intervening variaibles in a community (the areas where change is most likely to occur) such as retail access, social access, enforcement, procong, promotion, perceptions of risk/harm, and social norms. Examples of successful activities that have been conducted by our coalitions are: providing information: community presentations, media awareness activities, forums, town hall, and web-based communications. Enhancing skills: workshops, community trainings, strategic planning meetings. Providing support: assisting our coalition partners in their community events, coordinating community activities. Enhancing access/reducing barriers: improving systems and processes such as cooridinating community take backs of prescription drugs, working with school campuses to implement prevention practices. Physical design: assisting community to make permanent changes such as added rx drop boxes in a police station. Modifying/changing policiees: collaborating with local colleges to enact model alcohol and drug policies for falculty and students. Sustainability: the coalition department was awarded its third cycle of five year funnding for each of the four primary coalitions. Galveston county coalition added two additional funded programs in 2014: a drug free communities grant and a texas tobacco prevention & control coalition grant. The tobacco prevention task force takes a comprehensive approach to reducing the negative effects of tobacco use through implementation of strategies to prevent tobacco use, reduce second hand smoke, enforcement of existing laws, support for people who want to quit smoking, and support statewide capacity for comprehensive tobacco prevention and control.

core services department served 1,978 clients face to face and 2,058 telephone screenings/referras during the year. The goals of this program are: to educate the communities we serve about alcohol and drug abuse and the impact it has on the individual, families and our community;to inform our communities of the services bacoda has available; assessments for individuals to determine the severity of drug and/or alcohol problems; help for family members; and assistance for clients in accessing substance abuse services, including medical detoxification, and residential and outpatient treatment. Bacoda maintains a wait list of clients that have been referred to appropriate treatment services and awaiting an opening. Our counselors are able to provide services during this time to help keeep the client engaged in the treatment process and post treatment services to enhance personal recovery. Bacoda provides a weekly recovery support group as well as an educational class for family and loved ones dealing with a person who is using alcohol/ drugs at no charge. We provide state mandated as well as other psychoeducational classes that provide substance abuse education at a reasonable cost. These include dwi education, dwi repeat offenders, substance abuse education (15 hour class), and drug offender education. Bacoda continues to advocate for clients and their families throughout the treatment process to provide a continuum of care.