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"Alcohol" What a Nasty Taste
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CPACS
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
In our community, students believe that more than 50 percent of their peers are regularly using tobacco and marijuana products. Students also identified cultural issues surrounding substance misuse. They cited alcohol as a “cultural norm” and perceived parental approval as a common reason why their peers drink; they believe immigrant and/or refugee adults have some level of comfort allowing youth to drink in their presence or unsupervised, despite the legal drinking age in the United States.
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Needed additional resources to conduct activity
- Resources in different languages.
How did you overcome these challenges?
For future events, we will plan to partner with other agencies around the nation to seek resources in different languages.
What are your next steps?
- Expand our coalition with new partnerships in the community
- Support new prevention policies, legislation, or social ordinances
- Create a public education campaign to raise awareness and/or change behaviors around underage drinking (i.e., create PSAs and other promotional materials)
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- Prevention videos, such as College Drinking: Prevention Perspectives
- Communities Talk toolkits
- Communities Talk social media content (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
- We need more resources in various languages such as Nepali, Burmese, and Swahili
How did a Communities Talk event help you address those issues?
- Mobilized coalition members or other stakeholders
- Engagement with local government leaders and business owners to consider policy changes such as social hosting laws or restaurant worker trainings
- Educated youth and parents
- Created an opportunity to share resources and practices with other community stakeholders
- Made making good health behavior choices fun and engaging
- Raised awareness of substance abuse and/or underage drinking issues in our community
How did your event make an impact on underage drinking in your community?
We increased the capacity of the community and local school jurisdictions to provide culturally tailored substance use prevention resources to Asian and Latino youth. We also strengthened family functions and communication while empowering parents to help their adolescents to resist substance use by employing evidence-based strategies. Finally, we increased public awareness of relevant substance use issues among the Asian and Latino communities by developing and disseminating tailored prevention messaging.
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