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The More Foundation Community Block Party
Hosted by:
The More Foundation Inc.
Please briefly describe your Communities Talk activity.
The More Foundation partnered with S&H Youth/Adult Services to host an in-person block party. Our organizations provided school-aged children and their parents with useful underage drinking conversation-starter resources. During the event, staff and attendees shared personal experiences related to underage drinking and substance misuse, as well as how parents can help their children feel supported and understood as they navigate peer pressures. And, we shared messages of hope and promise and emphasized the importance of having these healthy parent-child relationships.
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
Underage drinking and alcohol misuse remain an issue in our community that we need to address. We’ve learned that drinking can be delayed when children feel like they have a close, supportive tie with their parents, as a good relationship can help to protect youth from developing alcohol or substance use disorders. These relationships are pivotal when educating our youth about underage drinking and substance misuse.
What goal(s) did you hope to accomplish with your Communities Talk activity?
- Reduce prevalence of underage drinking and other substances in community
- Create an ongoing conversation about underage drinking and substance use prevention in the community
- Foster collaboration between community stakeholders for continued underage drinking and substance use prevention activities
- Create new resources/materials (e.g., publications, handouts, factsheets, videos, graphics) to support prevention of underage drinking and misuse of other substances
- Improve policy/legislation (e.g., reducing alcohol advertising to which youth are exposed; instituting, promoting, or increasing alcohol compliance checks; improving
- Awareness and enforcement of social host laws) to support prevention of underage drinking
- Encourage community and local businesses to implement measures to prevent underage drinking (e.g., restricting or decreasing sales of alcohol at community events; conducting responsible beverage service training)
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Needed additional resources to conduct activity
- Lack of interest from the community
- Particularly severe or resistant substance use issues in our community
- Lack of promotion/awareness of our activity or organization
- Inexperience hosting Communities Talk activities
How did you overcome these challenges?
We overcame our challenges by staying persistent in our planning and promotional efforts, and encouraging the community members who did attend to spread the word about the event and to stay involved in future prevention efforts since we plan to continue this kind of work in our community.
What are your next steps?
- Host follow-up meetings or activities
- Create new action groups to tackle specific issues raised during our Communities Talk activity
- Expand our coalition with new partnerships in the community
- Support new prevention policies, legislation, or social ordinances
- Conduct research efforts to learn more about issues in our community
- 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?
- StopAlcoholAbuse.gov What’s New email newsletter
- Communities Talk planning guides
- Communities Talk toolkits
- NA
Who did you involve in your activity planning, and who did your activity impact?
We collaborated with a local program that catered to providing services necessary for alleviating and reducing addiction in families and communities. We were happy to engage both parents and students during our event and provide them with resources to start important conversations about underage drinking and substance misuse prevention.
Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the planning or execution of your activities?
No, we were able to hold our event in-person as planned.
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