2023 montana partnerships for success - the partnerships for success in montana project will address samhsa's intention to promote substance use prevention throughout the state for individuals and…

2023 montana partnerships for success - the partnerships for success in montana project will address samhsa's intention to promote substance use prevention throughout the state for individuals and families by building and expanding the capacity of local community prevention providers to implement evidenced-based programs. The project aims to strengthen state and community-level prevention capacity to identify and address local substance use prevention concerns, such as underage drinking, marijuana, and other emerging drug trends. The montana PFS project will focus on several underserved populations including rural youth, american indian youth, young adults in college, specifically american indian and lgbtq individuals. Underserved populations were selected by ranking rates of substance use, mental health needs, and high-risk indicators for youth and young adults. Each sub-recipient will utilize the strategic prevention framework with an emphasis on building capacity to sustain a community-level infrastructure. Evidenced-based prevention programming, policy changes and practices, and community-based process will improve the overall healthy development and resiliency in selected populations. The montana alliance of prevention (map) will act as the statewide coalition consisting of statewide organizations, local coalitions, health departments with shared risk and protective factors to ensure the coordination of efforts, address gaps in prevention, improve networking relationships and promote partnerships within and across communities. Communities and tribes funded under SP-23-004 will be included to reduce overlap, improve coordination, and facilitate partnerships. This will allow for a top down and bottom-up approach to increase capacity. Coordinated training and technical assistance will be provided to ensure coordinated approach to implementing evidenced-based programs, policies, and practices. The healthy collegiate montana project will help campuses build capacity to create, implement, and evaluate sustainable programs for prevention of alcohol and other drugs (AOD). The focus is on reaching underserved populations, specifically indigenous students, and lgbtq students. This project focuses on building capacity for six campuses with underserved populations to address prevention related issues. Because alcohol and other drug use is linked to other health outcomes (chronic disease, poor nutritional choices, and mental illness), IT is important to acknowledge this and centralize AOD education and prevention as part of overall campus design. By 2028, the goal is to reduce youth 30-day use rates (3-month use for college-aged population) of alcohol and marijuana statewide within each underserved population. Additionally, by 2028, reduce both youth reporting high depressive symptoms that lead to mental health issues and increase protective factors of neighborhood attachment and college-aged population reporting psychological distress and increase their sense of belonging to the school. Increasing capacity and infrastructure for substance use prevention will build healthy communities, improving and protecting the health, well-being, and self-reliance of all montanans.