Town takes steps toward becoming drug-free with grant

Jan. 3, 2018 | Payton North
payton@thereminder.com

Longmeadow Superintendent Dr. Martin O'Shea hosted his fourth installment of the Superintendent's Corner YouTube series where he discussed the drug epidemic and how Longmeadow is taking preventative action.
Reminder Publications submitted photo.

LONGMEADOW – In the latest installment of Longmeadow Superintendent Dr. Martin O’Shea’s YouTube series, Superintendent’s Corner, O’Shea discusses the national problem of drugs in towns and cities, and the specific prevention and intervention efforts that Longmeadow is taking to create a drug-free community.

Paul McNeil, Coalition Coordinator of the Drug Free Community and Shelly Warren, the towns Substance Abuse Response Coordinator and President of the Close Coalition joined O’Shea during the 20-minute video.

“Longmeadow received a highly competitive federal grant called the Drug-Free Community Grant,” O’Shea shared. “We’re excited to receive this grant and we think that it will support some very important prevention and intervention work in the years ahead.”

McNeil shared more information about the grant as well as his background.  Longmeadow is the third community that McNeil has worked with to help with the Federal Drug-Free Community support program funding, and he’s “found success in every community he’s worked with.”  He noted that though the federal funding for this grant has been around for about 20 years, it’s a very competitive grant, with only 99 communities awarded these funds.

“It’s $125,000 a year for at least five years, and we’ll have a chance to apply for five more years, being that we’re able to show success for the first five years.  I’m very optimistic that this will happen, a ton of people are on board with this Coalition already,” McNeil said.

McNeil continued, “It’s a Coalition model that basically involves 12 sector representatives, everything from law enforcement, to business owners, to youth, to parents, to the health sector, and we bring these 12 sector representatives in the community together and try to find responsive ways that we can respond to substance use as a youth-behavioral health issue.”

“One of the things that’s exciting is that it enables people in the community who are already doing work on the protective factors and to reduce substance use, to start to work together.  While the school does a tremendous amount in terms of health education and parent outreach and even intervention with students, we’re now able to partner with other people in the community who have a different piece of the puzzle,” Warren said.

O’Shea commented that one of the reasons the town was excited to apply for the funding was that if they received it, it would allow for the town to build on existing programming.

“It allows for local solutions to address local problems,” O’Shea said.

“We’re not really into saying, ‘just say no to drugs.’ I think the focus of our work is actually reducing the barriers that help young people find really healthy, sustainable ways of growing up and finding happiness and well-being and trying to decrease the risk factors that would lead young people to using substances in order to feel good or better,” McNeil explained.

Evidence-based strategies are in place that the Drug-Free Communities grant program relies on, O’Shea said.

“There’s a fair amount of evidence that the intervention strategies that the grant supports actually works,” O’Shea said.

Every community that has received funding over the last 20 years has seen a decrease in 30-day reported youth alcohol use, marijuana use, tobacco use and prescription drug use, according to McNeil.

The group continues to discuss the various evidence-based strategies that the Drug-Free Communities grant supports, as well as additional forms of prevention including a life-skills program, which works on youth self-esteem, building resiliency skills, self-advocacy and stress management.

“It’s not just changing an individuals behavior, it’s changing the environment that everyone is raising their families and everyone’s growing up in,” McNeil explained.

During the grant application process the town had to do a community-based needs assessment, which showed local conditions Longmeadow has.  Warren shared that Longmeadow has more access to illegal substances than typical communities due to several factors including higher rate of disposable income and the town’s location within a “high-intensity drug trafficking area.”  Additionally, the Longmeadow youth tends to have more access to places where they could purchase substances.  For instance, Warren noted there are 16 nicotine retailers within a four-mile radius from Longmeadow High School.

“We have very high-achieving, very involved students, which is a protective factor in a lot of ways.  They’re very invested in their futures and are doing a lot of positive things, but we also have higher rates as a result of sports injuries which can be an entry point for prescription pills,” Warren explained.

In regard to root-causes for substance abuse in the area, McNeil stated it has good deal to do with youth stress.

“The data that’s been collected in the community climate surveys in the past few years has shown pretty high levels of self-identified stress or anxiety as root causes.  It’s pretty high-stakes academia here in Longmeadow and a lot of students are aware of that and sensitive to that,” McNeil continued, “If you’re not taking a particular medication to help with doctor prescribed focusing, then sometimes those prescriptions can be shared as sort of ‘study drugs’ and that’s something that’s really prevalent in high-achieving academic communities.”

Additionally, McNeil noted that drinking in the household could have a ‘counter-intuitive outcome.’  He states that youth who are allowed to casually drink in the home with their families can cause students to believe that drinking isn’t bad, when in reality, it can affect their brain development.

“We do have that 26 percent of our seniors last year showed signs of depression. I think there’s a self-medicating aspect for some students.  When you’re using to change how you feel, it sets you up as an increased risk,” Warren added.

The School System hopes to continue to teach students coping mechanisms at a young age to assist with these feelings of stress and how to manage it.  Additionally, they plan to work on parent education and social-norms campaigns.  

On Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Storrs Library there will be a community-wide event to discuss education, panel discussion and breakout discussion regarding substance abuse as a human condition.

To watch the Superintendents Corner episode four, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHFunO0pY4Q.

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