Coalition Wins Award for Reducing Youth Inhalant Use

Virginia's SAFE Coalition has received the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors 2010 National Exemplary Award for Innovative Substance Abuse Prevention Programs, Practices, and Policies for decreasing lifetime inhalant use among eighth-graders in their county.

The award will be presented to coalition representatives Mary Lib Morgan and Sharyl Adams at NASADAD’s Denver conference next month.

SAFE, a CADCA member coalition and a graduate of CADCA’s National Coalition Academy, spearheaded a comprehensive inhalant abuse prevention initiative in Chesterfield County and initiated the formation of the Virginia Inhalant Abuse Prevention Coalition.

Wayne Frith, Executive director of SAFE in Chesterfield County, Virginia, discussed the issue of inhalants on a CADCA TV show last year. “Because even first-time use of an inhalant – or use any time – can result in death, our Inhalant Abuse Prevention Initiative stresses the importance of never using an inhalant,” he said.

In 2005, SAFE successfully advocated with their school board to allow the administration of a survey of youth in grades eight, 10 and 12, the first such survey in 12 years. The survey results showed usage rates of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs to be aligned with coalition members’ expectations. But there was a huge surprise. Inhalant abuse among 8th graders – the age usage peaks – was much higher than the national norm: lifetime use, at 19.8 percent, was higher than the national average of 17.1 percent and past 30-day use, at 8.2 percent, was double the national average of 4.1 percent.

“This was surprising information to the coalition and to the community,” Frith said.

SAFE immediately formed an inhalant task force to address this issue finding that educators, youth-serving professionals and parents in their community had little knowledge about inhalant abuse. In researching inhalant abuse, the task force discovered there were no programs addressing inhalants on any list of research-based proven effective model programs. In keeping with its philosophy and mission of “engaging all sectors of the community in substance abuse prevention,” the task force also looked for community-wide approaches to inhalant abuse prevention and found little information. The task force realized it would need to develop its own community-based initiative to prevent inhalant abuse.

SAFE’s Inhalant Abuse Prevention Initiative contains five basic strategies:

• Creating parent and community awareness through a media campaign
• Training professionals with comprehensive curriculum developed by the coalition and adopted by the Virginia Department of Education
• Educating entire elementary and middle school communities including all school staff, parents, and students
• Decreasing accessibility to products by creating safer physical environments at school and home including making students’ back-to-school supply lists “non-abuseable”
• Modifying school policies to address inhalant issues

The implementation of these strategies resulted in a 44 percent decrease in lifetime inhalant use among eighth-graders, from 19.8 percent in 2005 to 11.7 percent, well below the national average of 16.1 percent. Past 30-day use dropped to 3.0 percent, which is well below the national average and 64 percent less than in 2005.

“SAFE’s Inhalant Abuse Prevention Initiative has successfully raised awareness about the problem of inhalant use, increased the capacity of our community to deal with the problem, and helped create safer environments at home and school, resulting in decreased use by our adolescents,” Frith concluded.