Saratoga Partnership for Prevention

Partnership Meeting Minutes

Date:  

September 9, 2004

Facilitator:      Elissa Nolan

Location:

3 Blue Streak Blvd., 2^nd floor, School District Administration Building

Recorder:       Robin Ambrosino

Attendees:

R. Ambrosino, L. Beer, B. Dixon, J. Ekman, L. Hassenger, N. Karas, J. Kelly,

B. LaBarge, S. Lang, R. Lavigne, M. Laudicina, D. McGarry, E. Nolan,

T. Paskewich, K. Pettigrew, B. Quinn, J. Tirelli, S. Wolos.

Materials Distributed:

l  Take Back the Night flyer  l  Domestic Violence/Rape Crisis course offerings  l  Partnership’s Underage Drinking Prevention Campaign Activity Fact Sheet  l  Information about AWOL alcohol vaporizer                   

Upcoming Events

·     Saratoga County Treatment Court will hold two graduations this fall: one next week and one in early November. If you’re interested in attending, contact Becky Dixon at 884-4781.

·     Domestic Violence/Rape Crisis has many open spaces for programming tailored to girls aged 6- 11. Call 583-0280 for more information.

·     The Youth Employment Success program (YES) is looking for 19-21 year-olds for this program this year. The program helps place 14-21 year-olds in local jobs. Call 885-8995 for more info.

·     Sunday, September 26 is The Prevention Council’s Annual Family Fun Walk fundraiser at Spa State Park.

·     Tom Paskewich is from Saratoga County Health Dept.’s Emergency Preparedness division. If you need a speaker to address public health topics, call 584-7460.

·     Information was distributed about a new product, called Alcohol Without Liquid that allows people to inhale alcohol via vaporizer. For more information, visit http://www.awolusa.com.

·     The Warren/Washington Prevention Council is sponsoring a free conference with OASAS on the development of rural community coalitions on Monday, September 27^th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Excellent presenters. Dinner cruise on Lake George the night before for $20. Already 178 people have registered. We reserved 12 spots, so call 581-1230 if you want to come.

Partnership updates

·     Partnership staff worked for four weeks at DARE All Stars camp this summer, serving 160 new 6^th graders. Staff showed press coverage of camp and a PowerPoint presentation from the last day of camp. The switch to middle school is both a physical and an emotional transition. Camp helps reinforce that not everyone is using substances, and helps them forge new friendships before school starts.

·     Elissa has taken a position at the New York State Department of Health to facilitate community collaborations that focus on physical activity, nutrition, and tobacco use. Her last day will be September 22^nd.

·     TIPS classes are going strong. A course for package store staff, including people referred to us via the courts for selling to minors, is scheduled for October 19^th. A course for bar and restaurant staff will be scheduled in November.

·     Strengthening Families is on hold this fall. Staff will regroup when we fill Elissa’s position and will offer the course in the spring.

§   Partnership staff will send an e-mail about when and where our send-off party will be.

Drug Free Communities Grant – Year 2

·     As part of the grant requirement, staff will be administering the CTC survey again this year to 6^th-12^th grade students in the Saratoga Springs City School District. We will also be collecting updated community data for the Community Risk Profile.

·     The Underage Drinking Prevention Campaign will also kick off this year, aimed at keeping the issue of underage drinking in the public eye. Partners brainstormed ideas for a tagline at the June meeting and voted their top three picks. Results were:

§         This is not a test.

§         Stop fooling yourself. (words inside a stop sign)

§         Too good to waste.

§         Own your tomorrow.

§         My life, My choice.

·     Staff forwarded these tagline ideas to Chuck Breiner at Ambrosino Designs, who will give us feedback about the taglines and/or offer a new idea in time for the October meeting. When tagline is ready, it will be available to anyone hosting events/programs that address underage drinking. This will help the public connect the dots and see the Partnership as unified group.

·        New York State and local colleges are also about to launch their own statewide underage drinking prevention campaigns. We may be able to borrow or use their resources.

·     Small subcommittee of SCYE convened a focus group of 13 young people aged 13-20 to discuss possibility of forming a county-wide Youth Advisory Council. Kids thought the ideas were exciting enough to continue to meet and see what develops from there. Next meeting is Monday, Sept. 27^th.

·   

Other developments

·     DA Jim Murphy, SSPD Chief Ed Moore, Saratogian Managing Editor Barb Lombardo, and Prevention Council Director Judy Ekman met to discuss how to deal with juvenile offenders whose names should be private, but are a matter of public record before their arraignment. Question came up about whether to print names when they are related to underage drinking.  

·        Idea: print regular information in the paper so community can quantify damages associated with drinking – i.e., 15 arrests for possession, 15 arrests for criminal mischief, etc. Not necessarily related to underage drinking, but an eye opener about how many police calls are connected to alcohol consumption. This might also be printed as a tally that’s part of the regular police blotter.

·        Also, roughly 30 kids aged 16-21 are referred to The Prevention Council’s court class each month for misdemeanor crimes in Saratoga Springs alone. This info could be part of that regular tally in the paper.

·        CLN committee may want to discuss this in the future.

Community Calendar

·  At the June meeting, partners brainstormed human service activities already taking place in the area and mapped them out on a large calendar, broken into months and quarters of the year. Goal is to chart activities that address underage drinking and can be promoted in a unified media campaign.

·  Partners were asked to write their names next to a few activities on the calendar and complete a short fact sheet with information about the activities they chose: activity, purpose, when and where, contact info.

·  Once we have more information, we can turn the calendar into a document that’s useful. Possibly post it online and update it.

·  Partners should return fact sheets to Nicole or Robin before the October meeting. By fax: 581-1240, or by regular mail to 36 Phila Street, Saratoga Springs.

Next Meeting

The next Partnership meeting will take place on Thursday, October 14^th at the district offices on the high school campus.