Welcome to October Partner Pulse

Thank you so much for your participation in the Tackling Youth Substance Abuse Coalition. Whether you are a business or nonprofit partner, workgroup member or Steering Committee member, your commitment and hard work helps us to accomplish our goals. Below you will read about TYSA workgroups, decisions of the TYSA Steering Committee, and important partner updates and upcoming events.

Save the Date: Touch-A-Truck

Continuum of Care

-This past spring, Columbia Capstone graduate students came to SI to conduct a needs assessment and published a subsequent report outlining suggested gaps in the continuum of services that has gotten media attention. CoC proposed the need for a similar type of assessment in previous years and so the group discussed the benefits and drawbacks of the published report. The group decided that we should ask that the Steering Committee provide feedback on the report and that a response be developed.
-Given recent discussions around the lack of residential treatment on the island, CoC also revisited the inclusion of off-island resources on our resource guide and referral materials. The group would like to research off-island programs using the following criteria: % of SI residents, intake and services within boroughs, willingness to participate in TYSA. We ask that the Steering Committee make a decision as to whether we will move forward with this investigation.
 

Data

Opioid

-The group continued to refine our Just Ask messaging which will now focus solely on opioid analgesics and related prevention strategies. We have reached out to a marketing firm to develop our design.
-We continue to think through ways to utilize the strengths of our local pharmacies to educate the community and connect people with resources. The group suggested piloting an SBIRT training with our local pharmacists to determine the feasibility of extending this strategy. We also set a fundraising goal to obtain additional dollars to install drug drop boxes in two more pharmacies.

Policy & Advocacy

-The group reviewed documents designed to further edit the TYSA Policy Ask Wishlist. These documents included a spreadsheet that staff from Senator Lanza’s office created to translate the TYSA Wishlist into actual bills/legislation. The group also discussed the first draft of the criteria developed by SIPCW staff to evaluate each individual ask on the wishlist. The wishlist will be divided among the group by area of expertise and scored based on the updated criteria. 
-Staff from offices of elected officials attended the meeting. Going forward, meetings will have time built in for staff from local representative offices to share updates relevant to TYSA.
-The group also discussed barriers to community board support of mandating Responsible Beverage Service Training for neighborhood bars/restaurants.
-Due to BAAFT efforts, the MTA Board will officially vote on the decision to no longer accept alcohol advertisement contracts on public transit in October.

Social Norms

-After looking over the YDS 30-day use data for marijuana and the AAS data for adult perceptions of youth & young adult use of marijuana, social norms discussed unique challenges of marijuana programming and messaging in today's legalization landscape. The group discussed the need for Social Norm's strategies on marijuana to be evidence-based and requested support from the Data Workgroup to pull together information from other evidence-based and evidence-informed social media and social marketing campaigns targeting marijuana use in youth & young adults. Going forward, the group would like to receive quarterly data updates from the Data Workgroup. 
-The group would like to repeat the Halloween sticker shock done last year and expand reach by encouraging more youth to participate. The stickers will also be revised to say “providing alcohol” instead of “serving alcohol” and they will be translated into Spanish as well. The group plans to work with the data workgroup to find ways to measure impact (brief surveys, etc.) of this campaign.