Preventing youth access to alcohol-to-go through training, education, & enforcement - texans for safe and drug-free youth's (TXSDY) project, preventing youth access to alcohol-to-go through…

Preventing youth access to alcohol-to-go through training, education, & enforcement - texans for safe and drug-free youth's (TXSDY) project, preventing youth access to alcohol-to-go through training, education, & enforcement, aims to address youth (ages 12-20) access to alcohol by creating and implementing a comprehensive alcohol-to-go compliance training program and toolkit. Additionally, the project aims to aid our statewide coalition efforts to prevent and reduce underage drinking by developing and testing a compliance check process, ultimately establishing best practices for enforcing underage drinking laws as they relate to alcohol-to-go sales. We are seeking stop act funds to implement and achieve the program goals. In texas, underage drinking is a significant problem that can be challenging to solve - especially when state alcohol laws change, having broad impact with unintended consequences. That's the case with alcohol-to-go laws, which have greatly expanded youth access to alcohol. As such, TXSDY's stop program has three overarching goals: 1) increase the capacity of law enforcement to improve underage drinking enforcement efforts related to new alcohol-to-go laws, 2) reduce opportunities for underage drinking by creating and implementing best practices for retailers providing alcohol through the new alcohol-to-go laws, and 3) reduce opportunities for underage drinking by providing the public with education on alcohol-to-go laws, how they increase youth access to alcohol, and evidence-based community prevention practices. Currently, there are no best practices for compliance checks or retailer education for alcohol-to-go sales (drive-thru, curbside, home delivery). Therefore, TXSDY will begin by conducting research on promising practices for alcohol-to-go sales and enforcing underage drinking laws, resulting in the creation of a report outlining findings. In partnership with law enforcement and local community partners, we will use the report findings to guide creation of trainings and a compliance toolkit with educational resources for law enforcement, retailers, and the general public. During the four-year funding cycle of the stop act program, TXSDY plans to provide at least 30 trainings: 10 law enforcement trainings, 10 retailer trainings, and 10 community trainings. By the end of the fourth year, TXSDY will have trained at least 300 people in at least 10 different texas communities. These activities will build capacity and effectiveness in addressing increased youth access to alcohol created by alcohol-to-go laws - specifically, compliance and ID checks - to prevent underage drinking. This program works to establish promising and best practices for compliance checks regarding drive-thru, curbside, and home delivery of alcohol to keep IT out of the hands of youth. The program results will be beneficial to individual communities, our state as a while, and law enforcement across the country.