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Archive for the ‘Drug Abuse’ Category
We Are The Solution
LiveFree! established itself as a Pinellas County leader in effective prevention planning strategies for community coalitions by addressing underage drinking and teen drug use. The organization’s strategies are based on the Strategic Prevention Framework steps published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. These strategies are evidence-based with documented research demonstrating that prevention efforts are most effective when they are maintained over time. Data has also shown that community coalitions are the key to the success of Florida’s overall decline in teen drug use.
LiveFree!’s community coalition activities include the engagement of youth, parents, law enforcement, experts, and businesses in coalition activities. We promote personal and community advocacy, and public awareness of substance abuse in Pinellas County. These activities build support for parents and teens who are ![clip_image002[1]](http://www.ballywhonews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/clip_image0021.jpg "clip_image002[1]")
committed to living free of substance abuse. LiveFree! utilizes many creative engagement activities to mobilize youth, families and the community including:
· Be the Wall- A social marketing campaign that encourages parents in the community to “Be the Wall” between youth and underage drinking.
· Responsible Beverage Server Training, Compliance Checks and Last Drink Survey- These are environmental strategies that teach Pinellas Park Police effective methods to work with area vendors in reviewing their alcohol service policy and employee training practices. Members of the Pinellas Park Police Department implement the Last Drink Surveys, surveying DUI offenders on where they were served their last drink of alcohol prior to arrest. Data provides communities with valuable research to let law enforcement and other key members of the community know which establishments have the greatest need for responsible vendor education. These resources help to reduce the number of DUI offenders and increase the community’s knowledge of how youth are gaining access to alcohol. These factors combined with the connection between alcohol and youth-related crimes will help us achieve results.
· Operation Medicine Cabinet™- This program provides a solution to medicine cabinets being the number one source for prescription drugs to our youth. This pharmaceutical take-back program gives residents a chance to bring unused or expired prescriptions, controlled substances and over-the-counter medications to locations in their community for safe disposal.
· FACE IT- An evidence-based prevention program presented in Pinellas County middle and high schools as an alternative to expulsion for youth caught using/possessing drugs on school grounds. FACE IT requires youth and parent participation to fulfill the mandated completion requirement.
Organization Experience
Established in 2003, LiveFree! has realized numerous program successes over its seven-year history.
- We have a coalition membership in excess of more than 340 members
- We provide more than 3,300 community prevention hours annually
- We also have five active workgroups to engage coalition members.
During 2009 alone, more than 16,200 adults and 2,600 youth were reached through health fairs and community events with the important message of creating a safe, healthy and substance abuse–free community.
Key community partners engaged in the coalition have helped to build successful community strategies that address: teen alcohol use, binge drinking, prescription drug misuse and other teen drug use. We include the full implementation of creative social marketing campaigns likeFlorida’s Be the Wall campaign.
Annual hallmark prevention forums include:
· A televised WEDU Town Hall Meeting on PBS
· Two Operation Medicine Cabinet take back operations
· The NOPE Candlelight Vigil
· Advocacy training
· Middle school, high school and college LiveFree! Youth Clubs
LiveFree! kicks off the Early Youth Initiative in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention and the Florida Office of Drug Control in August 2010. Together they enforce underage drinking laws.
LiveFree! remains on the cutting edge of innovation, research, and strategic community-focused approaches. We want to create a safe, healthy and substance abuse–free community. No other local organization has the partnerships and community trust to undertake this scope of work.
LiveFree!’s leadership consists of a volunteer Key Leaders Council representing a broad spectrum of community experts. The council includes: law enforcement, Pinellas County Public Schools, institutions of higher learning, faith based organizations, parents, youth, providers of healthcare services and others who are dedicated to realizing our mission. Each genuinely recognizes and fully supports the important role that LiveFree! plays in serving as a leader to create public and private collaborations. We link youth, young adults, families and neighborhoods to public awareness, advocacy, education and healthy solutions to create a safe, healthy and substance abuse–free community.
Members of the Council and Coalition Workgroups represent award winning prevention leaders in Pinellas County including: Chief Dorene Thomas, Dr. Jan Urbanski and Larry Jopek. All of these members received the first round of LiveFree! Excellence Awards. Council Member and Administrator of Prevention Services for Operation PAR, Daphne Miller, was recently honored by the Florida Certification Board as the ‘2010 Professional of the Year’.
The misuse and Abuse of Prescription Drugs are on the rise in Pinellas County, the State of Florida and the Nation. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, “Prescription drug abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem in the United States. Because prescription drugs are legal, they are easily accessible, often from a home medicine cabinet. Further, some individuals who abuse prescription drugs, particularly teens, believe these substances are safer than illicit drugs because they are prescribed by a healthcare professional and sold behind the counter”.
According to the 2008 Partnership for a Drug Free America’s Annual Tracking Study, 1 in 5 teens have abused a prescription pain medication and 1 in 5 teens report abusing prescription stimulants and tranquilizers. In a report released by SAMHSA in July of 2008, they state that the intentional misuse of prescription drugs is now only second to marijuana as the nation’s most prevalent drug problem.
In 2008, 15.7% of Pinellas County high school students and 3.4% of Pinellas County middle school students reported using Prescription Pain Relievers on at least one occasion in their lifetime, (Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey). The Pinellas County Substance Use, Health, and Safety Survey reports in 2008 that 1.1% of 6th graders, 4.5% of 8th graders, 5.6% of 10th graders and 5.8% of 12th graders reported non-medical use of prescription drugs in the past 30-days. This is an increase in every grade from 2006.
Prescription Drugs, when not used in proper direction of a doctor, are dangerous and potentially lethal substances. In District 6, which is comprised of Pinellas and Pasco Counties, the Medical Examiner’s Annual Reports document that from 2001 to 2009, the cases of deceased persons with Hydrocodone found in toxicology reports rose from 54 to 115, an overall increase of 113.0%, Oxycodone rose from 61 to 294, an overall increase of 382.0% and Methadone rose from 37 to 143, an overall increase of 286.5%, whereas Heroin decreased from 32 to 9, an overall decrease of 71.9%. From 2003 to 2009, the cases with Alprazolam (Xanax) rose from 82 to 267, an overall increase of 225.6%. District 6 Medical Examiner’s data also shows that we have the highest amounts of six out of the seven prescription drugs tested for in toxicology reports by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, (alprazolam, oxycodone, hydrocodone (tie), propoxyphene (tie), methadone, morphine).
Removing unwanted or unused prescription drugs from the home is an effective strategy to help keep our youth safe. Data from the 2009 Partnership/ METLIFE Foundation Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) reports that 63% of teens believe prescription drugs are easy to get from their parent’s medicine cabinet, up significantly from 56% just last year. LiveFree! in partnership with the Pinellas Juvenile Assessment Center (PJAC) and the Juvenile Addiction Receiving Facility (JARF) have been implementing a survey asking youth about their prescription drug use. 74.1% of youth surveyed at the JARF and 17.7% of youth surveyed at the PJAC report misusing prescription drugs on at least one occasion in their lifetime.
To help combat the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs in our community, you can:
- Carefully monitor prescription drugs in the home;
- If you have unused or expired prescription drugs, properly dispose of them at a law enforcement-sponsored take-back event in your community;
- Support efforts to educate physicians about opiate painkiller prescribing;
- Share information about the dangers of prescription drug abuse with your family, friends, and members of the public.
The next Operation Medicine Cabinet- a prescription drug take back day- will occur on August 21, 2010 with 8 locations throughout Pinellas County
Being healthy isn’t just trendy, it’s a way to improve our lives. If we work together as a community, we can improve ourselves, our loved ones and our community in general. We are lucky to have a new resource in Hillsborough County that will help us work toward our goal of being a more healthy community. Hillsborough County Health Department’s Office of Health Equity has combined forces with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and local leaders from: government, private business as well as community and religious organizations. This group of leaders from all parts of Hillsborough county are working together to create a healthy community by first using a program called CHANGE, to evaluate some of the practices in our community and together we will develop improvements that will benefit all of us.
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CHANGE has been used in other communities and has had great results. It is a tool that we can use to do things like keeping our children at all of our 243 public schools safe from second hand smoke by agreeing on making our schools tobacco free. The truth is, we all need to make some changes to our lifestyles that will make us healthier people. If we work together it will be easier because there is strength in numbers. Before we can make any changes, we need to have a little bit better idea of what we are doing now. We need to decide which of the things that we are already doing are good for us, and which things we should make some changes to in order to better ourselves. This is where the CHANGE tool comes into play. It is an organized plan that we can follow that will help us decide on a plan of action that will make Hillsborough County better for all of us. The CHANGE tool will help us get a clear idea of where we are at and where we need to go. The program is set up so that the people who are responsible for it, work with all sorts of members of the community. There is a plan in place and they begin by dividing the area into five groups.
- Community at Large- These are things that relate to areas all over the community such as shopping centers, grocery stores, parks and other places where people gather for one reason or another. It is a way of making sure that our neighborhoods are set up so that it is easier to be healthy. It includes things like: having public parks and trails set up so that people have places to play and exercise and even working with our grocery stores; asking them to provide us with healthy food options.
- Schools- This includes every school, both public and private, in the area.
- Worksites- Once again we want to include everyone. Anywhere people work; from office buildings to restaurants and even outside work places like construction sites.
- Healthcare- Keeping with the theme of not leaving anyone out, the program includes any place that people can go to for medical care. We mean: hospitals, clinics and any other medical center. It does not matter who owns them or what they specialize in.
- Community Institutions and Organization- This is anyplace that provides a service that is intended to help people. It includes community centers, senior centers, religious institutions and social clubs.
Now that we have divided up the areas to be looked at, it will be easier to see where we are at. The CHANGE tool has a plan that will be used to evaluate these five areas individually. The Hillsborough County Office of Health Equity will work with the community and use the CHANGE tool to make Hillsborough County better and healthier. It will provide us with information that lets us work directly with you, the community, so we can improve our county.
Welcome to LiveFree! Since 2003, we have worked to raise awareness of adolescent and young adult substance use and abuse in Pinellas County. We bring together community members, experts, and teens to build support for parents and teens who are committed to living a life free of underage drinking, binge behavior, prescription drug use and other substance abuse.
Why Pinellas County?
Each year the state of Florida publishes data about substance abuse, broken down by county, age, and other factors. In 2003, Pinellas County led the state in alcohol use and underage drinking. In response, we formed the LiveFree! coalition. Today, the coalition maintains its effectiveness by investing in evidence-based prevention strategies to promote healthy choices among Pinellas County residents. We act as a collective voice for the community, striving to shape the lives of individual children, families, community members—and visioning future public policy.
Our Members
At LiveFree! our primary mission is to reduce alcohol, prescription drug and other substance abuse among youth and young adults. That’s why we focus on advocacy and education. The LiveFree! team includes parents, teens, law enforcement, and business leaders. Every member is dedicated to helping teens make wise choices about peers, school, alcohol, and illegal substances.
Whether you are a parent or not, we invite you to participate in LiveFree! Sign up to receive updates and newsletters, or volunteer to help us end teen substance abuse in your community:
- Join a LiveFree! work group or volunteer to share your talent and expertise for one of our events (5 hours a month).
- Sign on as a Key Leader Council member, and guide the organization as we grow and evolve (10 hours a month).
- Share your story as a member of our Speakers Bureau
- Participate in or lead a LiveFree! Youth Club
- Assist the Prescription Drug Task Force
- Join our “Be the Wall” campaign
Check back soon for updates about upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and other news. If you have questions about LiveFree!, visit us online or contact us at livefree@operpar.org.