December 20, 2007

This Week In Coalitions Online...

CADCA Announces its Outstanding Youth and National Guard Awardees
CADCA has named 16-year-old Yesenia Castro from Hood River, Ore. as its 2008 Outstanding Youth of the Year. The prestigious award recognizes an outstanding young person for service to a coalition and preventing substance abuse. CADCA has also named the Tennessee National Guard as the 2008 Outstanding National Guard, which recognizes a National Guard team that has made significant contributions to support CADCA coalitions in their state.
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Screening for Alcohol Problems a Cost Effective Strategy
New data shows that a 10-minute screening and talk with a doctor about problem drinking delivers almost as much bang for the buck to the health system as childhood immunization and advice about taking aspirin to prevent stroke and heart attack, according to a new systematic review. However, just 8.7 percent of problem drinkers report receiving such information.
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New SAMHSA Center to Help Strengthen Substance Abuse Prevention Efforts in Native American Communities
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently announced the Native American Center for Excellence, Prevention Technical Assistance Resource Center—a first-of-its-kind national Native American-run project to promote effective substance abuse prevention programs in Native American communities throughout the United States.
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Governor's Children's Mental Health Advisors
Recommend Launching "Oregon Wraparound" Program

Press Release
December 6, 2007

Salem – In an event at the ChristieCare Center for Children in Lake Oswego today, Governor Ted Kulongoski received the final report of the Statewide Children’s Wraparound Steering Committee, a group he created by Executive Order in March of this year.

The Steering Committee was charged to develop a strategic plan for Oregon’s children facing complex physical and mental health needs. The goal of the committee is to set a roadmap that will guide Oregon to:

• Providing service and support as early as possible so that children can be successful in their homes, schools and communities;
• Making service and support available based on the individual needs of the child and family – rather than on system requirements; and
• Maximizing the resources available to serve children and families across systems, so the mental health needs of Oregon’s children are appropriately and effectively met.

“This report is a roadmap that will guide the total transformation of Oregon’s delivery of behavioral health services for children,” said the Governor.  “I am dedicated to ensuring that in Oregon every child – including children with mental health issues – is safe at home, out of trouble, and in school.”
 
Oregon state agencies have worked independently for years to improve behavioral health services for children within their own systems.  However, too often these efforts are not coordinated across agency boundaries.
 
“Wraparound” is an approach to implementing individualized, comprehensive services within a coordinated network of services for children and youth with emotional and behavioral challenges. 
 
At the event, Stacy Allen told the story about how the Wraparound Initiative helped her and Adriana Rickard of Portland described the experience of her family, which counts on integrated services for their young child.
 
Allen, who is 18 years old and lives in The Dalles, said she had been self-medicating with methamphetamines instead of getting the mental health services she needed. However, the local Wraparound Initiative in The Dalles helped her turn her life around. Today she is getting her GED and on a path toward college.
 
“Wraparound gave me hope,” she told Governor Kulongoski and the audience for the event today. “And now I hope every family in the state who needs it can get the same kind of help.”
 
Also at the event was Lynne Saxton, Executive Director of ChristieCare, Mary Lou Johnson of the Centennial School District, Multnomah County Judge Nan Waller, foster parent Rev. Donald Foster, Sharon Guidera, Executive Director for Mid-Columbia Center for Living,
 
“The changed lives of the young people and their families I met today are proof that Oregon is moving in the right direction with the Wraparound Initiative,” said the Governor.  “From improved academic performance, fewer encounters with the criminal justice system, and improved mental and physical health – all of these result in children who are better positioned to succeed in school and in life, and families that are stronger and can stay together.”
 
The Governor pledged to do everything in his power to advance the recommendations in the Steering Committee’s Report, starting with the critical next steps the Committee recommended to begin implementing the Initiative as part of his 2009 - 2001 legislative agenda and recommended budget.
 
For a copy of the report, go to: 
www.oregon.gov/dhs/mentalhealth/wraparound/main.shtml/
 
For a copy of the executive order, go to:
http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/eo0704.pdf

Contact:
Patty Wentz, 503-378-6169
Rem Nivens, 503-378-6496

Armed With New Data, Oregon Will Strengthen Statewide Prevention Strategies
May 29, 2007

Contact: Jim Sellers 503-945-5738
Program contact: Geralyn Brennan 503-947-2319

Using the most comprehensive data Oregon has ever assembled on alcohol, tobacco and other drug use, state officials say they will design more targeted means to reduce their use and the disease and death they cause.

The data include startling findings such as Oregon youth smoking marijuana at rates higher than tobacco, Oregon ranking fourth in the nation for alcohol-induced deaths, and the state's drug-mortality rate double that of the nation's for five consecutive years.

“In the past we've undertaken preventive measures based on good rationale but far less supporting data,” said Bob Nikkel, Oregon Department of Human Services assistant director for addictions and mental health. “The new data will permit us to target prevention dollars and energy where it's most needed.”

He said DHS would involve treatment providers, stakeholders and others in developing a multi-year plan.
The data were compiled from 11 sources during the first phase of a three-year, $200,000 annual grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which says it wants states to make greater use of data to drive decisions. Oregon, one of 13 states participating in the project, also expects to produce county-level data this summer.

Among the findings, details of which can be found at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/addiction/resource_center.shtml#seow on the DHS Web site:

• Oregonians, who consume more alcohol than the national average, rank fourth nationally in alcohol-related deaths. The rate of such deaths rose by more than 50 percent over five years.
• More than one in 20 Oregon adults can be classified as heavy drinkers, with males ages 21 to 29 most likely to be heavy users.
• The rate of Oregon eighth-graders reporting having consumed alcohol during the past 30 days is 76 percent higher than the national rate.
• Oregon eighth- and 11th-graders are more likely to light up a marijuana cigarette than one containing tobacco.
• For the first time since 1998, the rate of Oregon 18- to 24-year-olds who report smoking tobacco every day exceeds the national rate. Adult deaths from lung cancer, emphysema and chronic lower respiratory disease exceeded the nation's rate for five straight years.
• Indicating that methamphetamine use is spreading across the state are data showing that although half of Oregon's 2002 meth-related deaths occurred in metropolitan Portland, by 2005 only 25 percent did.
• Oregon's rate of youthful use of inhalants, which like alcohol often are easily obtainable at home, was 50 percent higher than that of the nation.
• Although the state's smoking rates have declined during the past decade, the use of smokeless tobacco, whose health hazards are less well known, has remained at about 6 percent.

The new data show not only rates of alcohol-caused deaths, but also that early death cuts an average of 27 years from women's life expectancy and 20 from men's among those people whose deaths are attributable to alcohol.

Positive findings included significantly reduced use of the drug ecstasy in Oregon as well as fewer adolescent males reporting that they drive after drinking, dropping that rate well below the national average.

Nevertheless, Nikkel said the data show a sharp departure from the national decrease in drinking by eighth- and 11th-graders and calls for redoubling efforts to reduce underage drinking. Those efforts have included media advertising, prevention work in schools and a three-community pilot in Newport and Lake and Wallowa counties. He said rates of youthful use of alcohol, inhalants and prescription drugs, all frequently found in the home, also are an indicator parents need to continue to receive prevention messages.