Saratoga Partnership for Prevention

Partnership Meeting Minutes

Date:  

February 15, 2005

Facilitator:      Karen Pettigrew

Location:

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

Recorder:       Robin Ambrosino

Attendees:

R. Ambrosino, K. Bayer, J. Bell, M. Cary, G. Forward, N. Karas, J. Kelly,

B. LaBarge, K. Lanfear, S. Lang, T. Moon, J. Murphy, K. Pettigrew, 
A. Poremba, B. Quinn, K. Sephas, J. Tirelli, D. Torres.

Materials Distributed:

STOP DWI’s Shattered Lives magazine, Saratoga Springs Recreation Dept.’s Spring Program Announcements, High School PTSO’s fundraising letter for Post Prom party,.

Upcoming Events

 ·      Strengthening Families will begin at Maple Avenue Middle School on Tuesday, March 1^st.  Notification has already been sent to families of sixth graders, and seven families have registered. All facilitators are school district staff members, and  the BOCES’ culinary arts program will provide dinner each week.

·      The Saratoga Springs Recreation Department will hold Spring registration for soccer and lacrosse at the East Side Rec Field House  on week days, February 28- April 1, between 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. On Wednesdays, the Field House will be open until 6 p.m. For more information, call 587-3550 ext. 456. Kathy Lanfear is also president of the Jaycees, the Chamber’s Junior Leadership program for community members under age 40.  

·      The Prevention Council’s Safe Spring leadership conference for Saratoga County SADD members will take place March 17 at Skidmore College. Between 250-300 SADD kids are registered to attend. Partners are welcome to attend also. Please notify The Prevention Council at 581-1230.
 

·      Prevention providers and law enforcement officers planning the 10-county “Parents Who Host Lose the Most” campaign are looking to kick off a major media event in April, to last through prom season in May. They are in the process of choosing media partners to sponsor the program in either print or broadcast format.
 

·      Now that John Kelly has taken an investigator position with the Saratoga Springs Juvenile Unit, Jim Bell has been named as his replacement. Jim is already teaching DARE classes and shadowing John at various community events. He came to the February meeting to introduce himself.
 

·      Jim Murphy will announce his re-election campaign for Saratoga County District Attorney on Tuesday, February 22^nd at 1:30 p.m. at the Center for the Family’s Child Advocacy Center at 359 Ballston Avenue. Everyone is welcome to attend.
 

·      Judy Tirelli continues to work on the high school’s After Prom committee. A fundraising letter has gone out to help underwrite the cost of renting Hi Roc Lanes. The owners will provide food, beverages, and galactic bowling. Judy is interested in writing a short article for the Community Calendar for April or May.
 

·      There is now a brochure about the Partnership, what the organization is about, and what we do. Maureen Cary passed the document around for comments from partners.
 

·      The Saratoga chapter of the NAACP is exploring how to bring a formal discussion about diversity to students in Saratoga and the surrounding area. There will be a keynote speaker at the event named Dr. Watts. Kathy Sephas asked Partnership to recommend people from around the Capital District region who’d be interested in attending. Recommendations can be sent to Kathy at tworavkas@yahoo.com.
 

·      STOP DWI has published the magazine, “Shattered Lives, ” which MADD’s Karen Pettigrew brought to the meeting. MADD has raised $10,000 to underwrite the cost of the multimedia program available to schools this spring. Karen is also on the education committee for “Parents Who Host,” and will keep Partnership members posted on progress in the coming months.
 

·      Al Poremba is a new Assistant District Attorney with the Saratoga County DA’s office. He introduced himself, and – especially on the heels of the presentation at the Saratoga Springs Public Library by Ron “Cook” Barrett  - spoke briefly about gangs.

• The DA’s office doesn’t see as many gangs in the Saratoga area as they do gang member wannabes. Gang activity usually comes through drugs, which is a business venture. Once there’s a market for drugs, gangs get established based on drug-dealing territories.
   
• Drug dealers are not usually drug users, they’re business people. They can make more money in rural areas that are far away from the source city. There’s always a market for drugs in rural areas because there’s more money to be made.

·   Robin Ambrosino will e-mail Judy about which month to write for.



 

·   Tim Moon will send Kathy information about the NCBI training (National Coalition Building Institutive www.ncbi.org), which took place in Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa. Students who participated may also be interested in the NAACP conference.

Partnership

Updates

Maureen’s Grant Workshop

·      Maureen went to Washington DC to attend a Drug Free Communities grant workshop in January. The grant is now administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) vs. the Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention. There are several things to be aware about this change:
 

• Good news is that we won’t have to match more than $100K in in-kind goods and services for several more years. Under the old regime, that would have been necessary by next year. Our next application is due April 11^th.
   
• Bad news related to the change is that we’re not just reapplying for the grant this year – we’re recompeting with everyone in the country who wants a part of this money, whether they’ve been funded before or not.
   
• Also, SAMHSA is looking for an emphasis on coalition building vs. direct service. We’re supposed to be moving away from programming, and we’re not supposed to spend more than 20% of  our funding on direct services. Staff has asked for more information about this stipulation, since both Strengthening Families and DARE All Stars camp require staff time.
   
• We can be eliminated from funding if we don’t have Partnership members from 12 core members. Areas that are under-represented include business, religious/fraternal organizations, and volunteer and/or civic groups.

Quarterly reports to DFC Funders

·         Partnership staff submit quarterly reports to DFC funders to account for our activities. Here, too, we need to show members from 12 different sectors who regularly participate in events, planning, and other activities.
 

·         The report also has several pages of charts with space for specific data. However, the way we receive data from the CTC Youth Survey doesn’t match the required format. We’re not alone in this – other partnerships that do the CTC survey are also lacking in this area.
 

Parent Survey

·         Staff organized three nights of calling for the CTC Parent Survey– two in January and one in early February. This survey is the counterpart to the survey that 6^th – 12^th grade students took this fall. We’re very grateful to the volunteers who spent a weeknight making calls, and to Stewart’s, which leant us its phones. We now have 316 complete surveys, but we need 350 surveys in order to provide a valid sample to our evaluator.
 

·         The rest of the calls need to be done within the next couple weeks so we can get it into the pipeline to be analyzed  and included in the next DFC grant.
 

·         Someone suggested having parents complete surveys online. The concern was that this would make it impossible to ensure a random sample of area parents, or that parents were actually the ones completing the surveys.

·   Anyone who has time and the inclination can take blank surveys and make calls from home. Please let staff know and they’ll provide the appropriate materials.

Community

Forums

Discussion

·         For the member item grant from John Sweeney, the Partnership is required to host four forums on youth and alcohol. The Forums Committee has met several times and generated some good ideas, but has never gotten down to time frames, logistics, etc.

·         Staff has discussed what kind of forums are realistic, and the possibility of using content from a federal program called Fork in the Road, which has a lot of material available online. We may be able to incorporate some of their slides and other visual material into a PowerPoint presentation that includes local data about alcohol use. Potential venues might be PTSOs, BOCES, or Youth Court offender families.

o  Kelley Bayer and Tim Moon said scheduling an event for Youth Court would be difficult. Also, since Youth Court is a voluntary program, they couldn’t require families to attend.

Discussion:

·         Content from the “Parents Who Host Lose the Most” initiative fits well with the above idea. The “Parents Who Host” materials include handouts, not presentation material, but the objectives are similar to the Fork in the Road program – including having parents promise in writing to not provide alcohol to minors.

 

·         Suggestions were made about the possibility of bringing a youth and alcohol presentation to various existing venues, such as:

o  Employee meetings at State Farm Insurance or other local businesses – i.e., WalMart or Quad Graphics

o  An event sponsored by the middle school and high school PTSOs, or at the public library

o  During Strengthening Families

o  At local churches

o  At the monthly Chamber of Commerce meetings

o  At the weekly Rotary meetings at Longfellow’s

o  During the State Police’s bi-monthly talks for new recruits at the Navy/Kesselring site

o  At St. Clement’s Confirmation program. Judy Tirelli has a contact there.

·         A suggestion was made that if the presentation is already prepared, then whoever wants to can use it can do so without special skills or background in prevention. Then they could just let us know when they used it and in what context.
 

·         Another suggestion was to tap into specific media correspondents that cover health issues, such as John Gray from Channel 10, Benita Zahn for Channel 13, or the Post Star.
 

·         The possibility of giving a presentation for parents before school concerts or sporting events was raised again. Parents often have to drop their kids off an hour early, and they’re a captive audience.

o       Concern with this idea is that that it would dilute the message not to have people paying full attention.

o       Might make more sense to leave a flyer on parents’ seats for movies, band concerts, etc, and have someone call peoples’ attention to the handouts during the welcome address.

o       Stephanie Lang mentioned that this has been done before by stuffing informational flyers (called refrigerator notes) into the program for a band or orchestra event.

·         Kathy Lanfear of the Jaycees said that her organization has had good luck offering programs to the Ballston Spa School District, since they don’t have a DARE program. The Malta Avenue Elementary School principal was their contact person. Cathy Lee at the Ballston Area Community Center might also be interested in prevention presentations.

·         Jim Murphy offered to contact the Chamber to see when their next breakfast meeting is.
 

·         Jim also offered to take part in the presentation itself with someone who has a prevention background.
 

·         Jim also mentioned that the District Attorney’s office can help provide postage for mailings that are related to public safety.













 

·         The process to get refrigerator notes approved is to look for the dates of band, orchestra, choral, or drama events at on the school calendar, choose a date, and then get approval from Music Department chairman Jeff Vredenberg and the school principals.

Next

Meeting

The next Partnership meeting will take place at 3:30 p.m. on March  10^th at the district offices on the high school campus. Saratoga  Schools’ Attendance Officer Dave Torres will facilitate.