Lung Association Letter_SSA.pdf

55 West Wacker Drive, Suite 1150 | Chicago, IL 60601 | 1-800-LUNGUSA | Lung.org

Casie Jones Idaho Department of Health and Welfare 450 W State St, 4th floor Boise, ID 83702

Casie, The American Lung Association is providing this letter to outline the vaping and tobacco intervention and cessation support we can offer to schools in Idaho through a unique combination of American Lung

Association programs developed specifically for youth backed up by experienced national staff and on the ground Idaho-based program expertise. The American Lung Association will work in partnership with

Project Filter, health departments and local schools to address youth vaping and tobacco using the

Intervention Nicotine Dependence: Education, Prevention, Tobacco and Health (INDEPTH) and Not On

Tobacco (N-O-T) programs and by supporting the development and implementation of smokefree school policies that include alternatives to suspension.

The American Lung Association’s INDEPTH: An Alternative to Suspension or Citation helps schools and communities address the teen vaping problem in a supportive way. The program consists of four 50-minute sessions focused on tobacco, vaping, and other nicotine use; nicotine dependence; establishing healthy alternatives; and ending personal use of tobacco products including e-cigarettes. The program can be offered in a small group or one-on-one and in person or virtually. During the nationwide pilot of

INDEPTH, 60% of students who completed the INDEPTH program expressed a desire to quit. Through a local grant managed by the Lung Association, 66% of students participating in the program last year in supported schools expressed a desire to quit by the end of the program.

To ensure any student interested in quitting has access to an evidence-based program to support them, the Lung Association will also offer the Not On Tobacco® (N-O-T) youth tobacco and vaping cessation program. N-O-T is offered to small groups of 6-10 teens through a series of ten 50-minute sessions that can be conducted in a classroom or community setting, either in person or virtually. During these sessions, students are encouraged to participate in group discussions, hands-on activities, and journaling

— all key to helping them build the lifelong skills needed to quit vaping and tobacco for good. N-O-T has an impressive success rate, with approximately 90 percent of teens who participate in the program cutting back or quitting tobacco and vaping all together.

This project will be supported by experienced local staff who have effectively led these programs in Idaho and multiple other states and have completed Tobacco Treatment Specialist (CTTS) certification. Staff will help ensure program facilitators are trained and have the information and resources they need to work with their schools to implement the programs. Staff will also provide in-depth technical assistance including program orientations, quarterly networking calls, tobacco and vaping policy guidance, and other assistance. The project will use an independent evaluation partner to measure program outcomes, provide program reports and gather lessons learned to ensure sustainability and program efficacy.

The Lung Association’s national staff has decades of tobacco control experience and offers a highly developed infrastructure to support this work including specialized online facilitator training; program inboxes for both INDEPTH and N-O-T that any school or facilitator can reach out to at any time for technical assistance, annual recertification/refresher courses, a host of webinars and free trainings and a national program evaluation protocol.

Only the American Lung Association can offer this exclusive blend of youth vaping and tobacco intervention and evidence-based cessation programming backed up by a dedicated, supportive national staff and on the ground experienced youth tobacco intervention and cessation expertise. As the Lung

Association is the developer of the INDEPTH and N-O-T programs and offers the unique services outlined above, Project Filter has chosen to contract with the Lung Association for these specific services to spread awareness, increase knowledge, and build capacity of partners to implement INDEPTH within their communities and school as subject matter experts.

Sincerely, Deborah P. Brown

Chief Mission Officer

American Lung Association