EWC Receives Alcohol Grant
September 21, 2004
(Torrington, WY) In April of 2004, the University of Wyoming AWARE (Alcohol Wellness, Alternatives, Research, and Education) Program applied for monies available through the Wyoming Department of Health Substance Abuse Division for a "first-of-its-kind" collaboration between the University of Wyoming, Eastern Wyoming College, and the other community colleges in the state. The funded proposal will serve three primary purposes. The first goal is to establish a statewide community higher education initiative for the prevention of underage and excessive alcohol use by strategically planning research-based prevention/intervention strategies for implementation. The second goal is to help assist the Wyoming colleges in forming coalitions that enlarge the local community and campuses in prevention and education activities focused on underage and excessive alcohol use. The remaining goal is to assess the needs of each college and establish a baseline of the strengths and weaknesses.
The AWARE program will also be providing assistance to each of the funded community colleges statewide in the administrating of the CORE Alcohol and Other Drug Survey, developing capacity for personnel at the community college level to initiate and continue alcohol abuse prevention and early intervention programming, planning the delivery of best-practice prevention and intervention activities to campus populations, and developing and maintaining local coalitions by providing coalition resources and sponsoring state-wide coalition training.
The UW Higher Education Statewide Initiative on Alcohol Issues was funded through the Wyoming Division of Substance Abuse for a total of $148,619.90 of which each of the community colleges including Eastern Wyoming College will receive $9,796.00.
In November of 2003, representatives from the National Higher Education Center on Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Violence Prevention came to Wyoming in an effort to assess the scope of the alcohol problem at the community college level, meeting with key stakeholders from each group to discuss the problem of underage and excessive alcohol use on the individual campuses. The main issues salient to all campuses were: 1.) a lack of data; 2.) absence of a strategic plan for prevention or intervention of alcohol and other drug use/abuse; 3.) campus and community norms favorable to excessive and underage use; 4.) a lack of funding for prevention and intervention programming, and 5.) a lack of trained and knowledgeable/qualifies prevention personnel.
Anne Gardetto, Student Services Specialist at Eastern Wyoming College and Project Director for the grant states that, "A social problem of great concern to parents and communities across America, including institutions of higher education, is the abuse of alcohol consumption and other drugs. Unfortunately, these issues do not escape rural Wyoming. We are fortunate that financial resources are now available to assist the community college system in providing training, education, prevention activities, and further development of campus-community coalitions."
For more information please contact Anne Gardetto at 307.532.8328 or Marilyn Cotant at 307.532.8257.
