Alaska's SPF SIG e-Newsletter

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November 2013

Upcoming Training Opportunities

Coming up on Tuesday, November 19, Sylvan Robb from Information Insights will facilitate a training session on Preparing Your Coalition for Sustainability. This training will include a quick recap of the 10 Steps toward creating a sustainability plan, as well as a discussion of where participants are in those steps, and ideas for what they might do next. Have you started creating a plan? If so, where are you in the process? Some participants may have actually taken steps toward sustainability before creating a plan. We will discuss how they might benefit from incorporating those actions into a plan.

Next month on Tuesday, December 3, is a SPF SIG webinar focused on building a simple management system and display for your prevention information. Developing an MIS and Dashboard for Prevention Efforts will be presented by Claire Magowan with the Alaska Division of Behavioral Health and Susie Amundson of Wise at Work. This session will increase your understanding of how a management information system (MIS) is key for environmental prevention work. In addition, you will also receive assistance with building your own MIS, step-by-step, and creating its dashboard, click-by-click, on Excel. Don’t miss this opportunity to build your own local MIS to sustain your community prevention efforts. To see a list of additional upcoming trainings, check out the SPF SIG website for more information.

Past Trainings

For those of you that could not attend the October 15th training on Building Community Resource Networks, you can visit the SPF SIG website to find useful information from that session on expanding your resources in order to sustain community efforts. Also posted on the website is a comprehensive list of statewide prevention grantees that identifies priority areas, intervening variables, strategies, and contact information.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey - Highlighted Figures and Facts

The 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey asked a random sample of high school students in schools across Alaska to report on certain risky behaviors including alcohol and drug use. The anonymous and voluntary survey revealed some encouraging statistics that should be recognized. Over the last 10 years, the survey illustrated a dramatic decrease in alcohol and drug use among Alaska youth.

22.5 percent of high school students had consumed alcohol within the past 30 days; compared to 28.6 percent in 2011; 39.7 percent in 2007 and 38.7 percent in 2003.
19.7 percent of high school students reported using marijuana in the past 30 days; compared to 21.2 percent in 2011; 20.5 percent in 2007 and 23.9 percent in 2003.

Shedding Light on Substance Abuse and Suicide in Alaska

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been a couple of interesting articles on substance abuse and suicide featured in the Anchorage Daily News. Fighting a killer: How Nome built a safety net for drinkers, gives a compelling look at the community-wide response to Nome’s substance abuse issue.

From village children, a plea to stop suicide takes a look at what it is like opening up dialogue on difficult issues such as suicide, sexual assault, and substance abuse in a community, in this case the village of Tanana. The article also addresses Tanana’s grassroots prevention and awareness efforts of the 4-H “Helping Hands, Healing Hearts” Club. Youth participants of 4-H courageously shared essays about their experiences, at the Elders and Youth Conference that preceded the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention and during the convention.

Another community that recognized a problem and decided to do something about it is Sand Point. Sand Point Residents Run Suspected Drug Dealer Out of Town shares how an informal group of community members decided not to wait to take action.

A Request to Project Directors

Please feel free to send along any information or pictures that you would like to share in the next newsletter to Agnew::Beck. For items to go into the November newsletter, please send us news items or photos by Monday, December 2nd. We appreciate your contributions!