Alaska's SPF SIG e-Newsletter

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December 2012

December Announcements

Hello SPF Grantees & Community Prevention Support Team!

This is an email announcement to keep us all up to date on the recent and upcoming happenings around the SPF. There has been a lot of activity in each of the communities and great work being done. Here are a few announcements!

Happy Holidays and New Year to everyone!

NEW – Reviewer’s Checklist and Fidelity Worksheet Resources Online

Reviewers’s Checklist
After strategic plans are submitted on January 31st, they will be reviewed by a small panel of 3-5 people who will return comments within 2 weeks. This panel will provide helpful feedback to assist with the successful implementation of your plan. The reviewers will consist of: Devon, Diane, state evaluators, and other members of the EPI workgroup and Advisory Council. The Reviewer's Checklist mirrors what is included in the resource guide and the strategic plan template. However, there have been some minor changes. In order to be responsive to the types of strategies that grantees are focusing on and the budget available for implementation, the definition for Category 3 strategies has been slightly modified. It should not substantially change any of your current work, but please review the criteria on evidence of effectiveness to get familiar with this change. A few items under sustainability were clarified as well.

Download the Reviewer's Checklist or
Visit www.alaskaspfsig.org/resources/ for additional resources and tools.

Fidelity & Adaptations Worksheet
This worksheet will help guide you through important aspects of implementing evidence based strategies with fidelity. The Fidelity & Adaptations Worksheet is suitable for participant level strategies.

Download the Fidelity & Adaptations Worksheet or
Visit www.alaskaspfsig.org/resources/ for additional resources and tools.

NEW - Upcoming Presentations

Advocacy
The state has organized a webinar on advocacy from the perspective of communities, and how to work with your legislators. This webinar has been scheduled for February 14th from 10:30AM – 12:00PM. The presenters are Kate Burkhart with the Alaska Mental Health Board/ABADA Board & Delisa Culpepper from the Mental Health Trust Authority. Webinar details will be sent via e-mail.

Next Quarterly Grantee Cohort Call

Cohort Calls
The grantee cohort calls will continue as they have been in the past, facilitated by Shelly Wade from Agnew::Beck. The next scheduled call will be on January 16th from 1:30PM-3:00PM. Please e-mail sherrie@agnewbeck.com if there is a topic you would like included on the agenda. Teleconference invitations will be sent to all SPF project staff.

Site Visits & Current Activity

Yakutat
Yakutat has completed additional data collection about underage drinking and the findings will be available by December 18. Two days later the YTT Team will meet to incorporate the findings into their youth logic model and begin discussing possible strategies. YTT has also begun to identify potential strategies for their adult community level logic model with the coalition.

Angoon, Kake + Klukwan
A task force meeting was held on Friday, December 7, in Juneau, during which a project update and possible strategies were discussed. They are currently in the process of refining from a draft list of possible strategy options to begin working on their strategy-level logic models.

Nome
Nome is currently going full steam ahead, working hard at creating their strategy level logic models and incorporating the feedback from the coalition meetings held in mid-November. Unfortunately, Bobby Evans is leaving Kawerak at the end of this month. We thank him for all the hard work and dedication he brought to this project! Bridie Trainor will act as interim coordinator for the Nome SPF project. Also in Nome news...project team member Melissa Lewis was the featured guest at the December 13 Nome Interagency Council Meeting. Melissa gave an overview and update on the SPF/SIG project.

Homer
The Homer Prevention Project (HPP) has been actively meeting with the Advisory Workgroup (coalition) and narrowing down its list of potential strategies. On December 7 and 8, the HPP Team held a planning retreat to begin drafting its strategic plan and refining outcomes, strategies, and action steps. Local trauma expert Linda Chamberlain has given presentations on ACEs in community and is currently in the process of developing an ACEs Train-the-Trainer focused on brain development, substance abuse, and ACEs. More information about this training opportunity will be shared as details become available.

Fairbanks
The coalition held a meeting on Friday, December 7, during which they discussed coalition leadership and set a meeting for December19 to review coalition bylaws, coalition member’s roles and responsibilities, and discuss strategy possibilities for the SPF grant.

Wrangell/Petersburg
The project staff held a meeting on Thursday, December 6, during which they completed their community level logic model and have selected their preliminary strategies. They will be accessing the state evaluators as a resource to review the strategy level logic models. They also shared with us a lovely picture of their last meeting! (see above).

Evaluators
The state level evaluators are beginning a fidelity assessment of Step 1: Assessment and will be presenting these results to grantees as they are completed.