Coalition member awarded the prestigious FBI Director Community Leadership Award!

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Stephanie Siete of Community Bridges who has demonstrated outstanding contributions in community awareness and training toward the prevention of drugs and is the Phoenix Division’s recipient for 2016 Director’s Community Leadership Award.

The Director’s Community Leadership Award has been a principal means for the FBI to  publicly recognize the achievements of individuals and organizations that make extraordinary contributions to education and the prevention of crime and violence in their communities.

Ms. Siete has served as a prevention trainer on drug trends and community resources who spends the majority of her time educating the public about the realities of drug abuse.  Stephanie has served on the Tempe Coalition for several years and participated with the Town Hall in September of 2016 as featured presenter.  Over the last couple of years in partnership with Tempe Union High School District and the Coalition Stephanie did several presentations to Tempe parents and youth on the current trends of drugs in our community.

Town Hall Keep Your Kids Safe: Social Media, Drugs & Alcohol

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The town hall, moderated by media personality and former TV news anchor Catherine Anaya, will have experts who can arm parents with information about social media and the problems facing their children regarding substance use.

The Town Hall is a partnership with the Tempe Coalition and Tempe Union High School District.

Featured Presenters:

  • Katey McPherson, Executive Director of the Gurian Institute, which provides practical training for raising and educating boys and girls in the digital age, will explain how to manage your kids’ social media to minimize their risk.
  • Stephanie Siete, Director of Community Education for Community Bridges, Inc., a provider of comprehensive, medically integrated behavioral health programs, will discuss use of drugs and alcohol by youths and how risky behaviors affect brain development.
  • Dr. Norman Saba, a pediatrician will lend his expertise on social peer pressure and mental health surrounding social media.
  • A local parent will share how social media played a part in his teen-age youth drug abuse.

Representatives from Drug Free Kids AZ, The Pathway Program, AZ Liquor Control Board, and other organizations will also be on hand to answer questions from the public. Attendees can also win door prizes including medication lock boxes, signed copies of the book Why Teens Fail, What to Fix, and books by the town hall’s speakers.

The Tempe Coalition mobilizes Tempe citizens to help youth reach their full potential by reducing underage drinking and drug use through community leadership, education and collaboration. The coalition is a partnership between the City of Tempe and Tempe Community Council, and is funded by a grant from the Drug Free Communities Support Program. To learn more about Tempe Coalition’s substance abuse initiatives visit www.tempecoalition.org or contact Dara_Gibson@tempe.gov.

Two New Rx Drop Boxes in Tempe!

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Did you know……     

  • 80% of heroin users report that they started off using prescription pain relievers?
  • Arizona currently ranks 6th highest in the nation for individuals 12 years and older misusing and abusing prescription drugs? 
  • 3 out of 4 youth who report misusing prescription drugs in the last 30 days got them from friends or their home medicine cabinet?

With the help of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the Tempe Police Department, the Tempe Coalition has installed two new prescription drop boxes to help combat this issue.

Bring your unused and expired prescription drugs to these two Tempe Police Departments:

Tempe Police Headquarters Station   

120 E. 5th St.

Tempe, AZ 85281 

Hours: Monday through Friday 8:00am-5:00pm

(480) 350-8311

Tempe Police Apache Substation

1855 E. Apache Blvd.

Tempe, AZ 85281 

Hours: Monday through Friday 8:00am-5:00pm

(480) 350-8311

Here is the link from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office with a more comprehensive list of drop boxes across the state of Arizona.

With your help, we can stop the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs amongst youth in our community!

Resources for Parents and Youth

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Here are some additional tools available to families in Arizona:

  • Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Resources in AZ http://substanceabuse.az.gov/
  • Find Help Phoenix                                              http://findhelpphx.azurewebsites.net/
  • Suicide Prevention Resource Center                                              http://www.sprc.org
  • It Matters                                                                                                  http://www.azdhs.gov/itmatters/index.php
  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline    http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/                                              1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-273-8255                                                           
  • Teen Lifeline (3-9pm)                      602-248-8336 (TEEN) / 1-800-248-8336 (TEEN)  
  • Parent Helpline                                                                                                 1-855-DRUGFREE (1-855-378-4373)

September 15, 2015 Meeting Minutes

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Dara Gibson gave a summary to the Coalition regarding the notes provided by JHB Executive Consultants, the company that facilitated last month’s strategic planning session. The main points and summaries are as follows.

 

Education: The education sections focused on messaging and audience development, specifically, how we could better facilitate questions through our website and at presentations. Rick Horvath suggested we create a means on the website for parents to be able to ask questions to the Coalition and have a staff be able to answer them in a short period of time.

 

Public Awareness: This section primarily focused on leveraging the Coalitions resources to allow for a greater reach into the Tempe community. This would be accomplished through making the website more user friendly with in-house resources that parents could use, expanding the youth program in the remaining 6 Tempe Schools, and tabling more events.

 

Website development and the coalition online presence became a heavily discussed topic over this section. Greg Patrone discussed creating an active web tool that allows for parents to ask and receive questions about drug related issues. Sharon Weiss talked about the importance of having coalition members bio’s up to all members and the community to see the resources that the coalition has at its disposal.

 

Organizational Sustainability: Organizational Stability focuses on how the Tempe Coalition can continue its mission into the future. A new strategy to better accomplish this was suggested by Don Johnston and John Carter, who suggested that we have a 1 pager every Coalition meeting to allow member to be able to track goals and funding streams (this suggestion has sense been implemented). In addition, Don Johnston also spoke on the importance of the coalition to be constantly recruiting and trying to expand membership.

 

Subcommittees: Dara Gibson talks about the need to reorganize the subcommittees to try and be more effective going into this next year. The decision was made to reorganize into the three sectors of Education, Public Awareness, and Organization Stability. All members present were asked to use a sign in sheet to pick which committees they were interested in.

 

Full Meeting Minutes: 9-15-15 Coalition Minutes

May 12, 2015 Meeting Minutes

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  • Police Chief John Rush and Commander Noah Johnson both gave a presentation to the coalition on Medicinal Marijuana’s effect on the Tempe community. The presentation focused on the increased supply of illegal Marijuana entering Tempe due to the increased demand and inability for police to distinguish between legal and illegal Marijuana. The report also focused on crime that has happened in the Tempe community from illegal grow houses and Compassion Clinics. The police also reported the increase of smoke shops in the Tempe community. In conclusion, both discussed the need to prevent Marijuana from becoming legalized for recreational use. 

 

  • Dara Gibson continued by saying that while to coalition will be on break until August, the staff will be looking to identify a PR firm that can help with a new advertisement campaign focusing on Marijuana. In addition, Dara talked about the success had advertising on Pandora. The hope is that advertising can begin shifting over to the mobile app.

 

  • Nick LeFevre reported on the recently released finding from the Coalition Functions Instrument. The CFI found that all five domains were Almost on Target and that the coalition found strength in how data and information resources are applies to help inform members of their decision making. In addition, the community education presentations were having a desired impact on participants with a statistically significant increase in knowledge among pre-and post-test. Synergy and communication were highlighted as areas that needed improvement. Specifically, there needs to be more communication with the community on collation activities and their importance.

See the Full Meeting Minutes: 5-12-15 Coalition Minutes

Tempe Goes Back to School

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Parents, school is right around the corner and the City of Tempe wants to help! The cities “Tempe Goes Back to School” page provides residence with links to a wide range of resources. From education to transportation, this is your one stop shop for everything you need to know before your kids go back to school.

Check it out:

http://www.tempe.gov/city-hall/communication-and-media-relations/tempe-goes-back-to-school

 

April 14, 2015 Meeting Minutes

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  • Nick LeFevre, Coalition Assistant presented on the latest trends represented in the Arizona Youth Survey (AYS) about differences in use by gender. Trend for lifetime use is higher for females than males on alcohol, marijuana and RX prescriptions. 30 day use among females is edging higher among alcohol and RX prescriptions.  Alcohol use in 8th grade among females is higher than males but by 12th grade they are about equal. 30 day use of marijuana among female 8th graders is higher than males, but by 12th grade use by males exceeds female use by nearly 10 points. RX prescription meds once again show females higher in 8th grade but male use is higher than females by about 1 point by 12th grade.
  • The Tool Kit (Reduce Illicit Acquisition and Diversion of Prescription Drugs) from Arizona Criminal Justice System (ACJC) was presented to the Coalition.  There are five strategies and each strategy was presented in a basic informational format.
    1. Install permanent prescription drop boxes.
    2. Inform healthcare providers about the Prescription Monitoring Program and its benefits to public health.
    3. Reach out to law enforcement agencies about training opportunities and information about the value of registering and utilizing Arizona’s controlled Substance Prescription Monitoring Program.
    4. Raise awareness about prescription drug misuse and abuse by education, communication, safeguard and proper disposal.
    5. Provide healthcare providers with signs of prescription drug addiction in youth and adults.
    6. This was new information to the Coalition members and all members thought it was important initiative to look into. Rick Horvath and several members felt that the drop box initiative was the place to start and then we could look at the other strategies. Frank Mirizio offered to contact the Tempe PD about the drop box strategy.
  • Frank Mirizio reported that the parent workshops had 47 attendees on April 7 and 108 on April 8. Parents indicated they want more information.  It was decided to hold two in the fall and two in the spring with the support of all three school districts. TV crews from Channel 5 and Channel 3 were present.  Two articles were in the East Valley Tribune.  TUHSD supported the Coalition by sending out 13,000 emails about the workshops. In addition the Coalition printed and distributed 1200 flyers to the middle schools.

 

See the Full Meeting Minutes: 4-14-15 Coalition Minutes

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Tempe Outcomes (2)

A chart showing the over 50% decrease in regular use among Tempe 8th Graders. Information is courtesy of the Arizona Criminal Justice’s (ACJC) 2014 Arizona Youth Survey (AYS).