Partnerships for Success: State and Community Prevention Performance Grants

This program is designed to help States and U.S. territories reduce State-wide substance abuse rates by addressing gaps in their current prevention services and increasing their ability to reach out to specific populations or geographic areas with serious, emerging substance abuse problems. The grants aim to achieve a quantifiable decline in State-wide substance abuse rates by incorporating a strong incentive to grantees that have met or exceeded their prevention performance targets. The grants build on the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF), which requires that grantees utilize a five-step, data-driven planning model to ensure that program services address areas of greatest need. The key to the SPF program is that it offers monetary incentives in the form of program expansion supplements to the grantees that succeed in achieving critical performance outcomes by the end of the third year of the five-year program.

The four grantees are:

The Colorado Prevention Partnership for Success (CPPS): This project employs a public health model to demonstrate positive statewide change among 12-17 year olds in underage and binge drinking rates and in the binge drinking disparity for Latino youth. The CPPS will continue to integrate the Strategic Prevention Framework within Colorado's State Prevention System to ensure measurable and sustainable substance abuse prevention outcomes.

The Illinois Partnerships for Success: Funds from the grant will provide an opportunity for meaningful collaboration between State leaders and community members in order to build capacity for substance abuse prevention with a focus on underage drinking. In Illinois, 34.3 percent of youth of ages 13-18 drink alcohol on a regular basis, compared to 28.1 percent of their peers in the U.S. overall. Their goal is to reduce the high school (10th grade through 12th grade) 30-day use rate from 40.6 percent to 35 percent by 2012.

The Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS): As the Single State Agency for substance abuse and mental health services, DMHAS has been designated by the Governor's Office to lead the Connecticut Partnerships for Success (CT PFS) Initiative. This Initiative seeks to: 1) achieve a quantifiable decline in statewide substance abuse rates; 2) demonstrate a capacity to reduce substance abuse problems; and 3) achieve specific performance targets and program level outcomes.

The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services (DADAS): DADAS will use its Partnerships for Success funds to reduce alcohol binge drinking among the state's 14-25 year olds. Tennessee's Partnership for Success Project has a goal of reversing the state's upward trend in binge drinking by decreasing the total number of 14-25 year olds who engage in binge drinking within any 30-day period by 4.3 percent over the five-year grant period.

For additional information about SAMHSA grants go to http://www.samhsa.gov/grants/.