Texans Tell How Communities and Colleges Can Connect and Reduce Alcohol Abuse

Community coalitions wanting to initiate or strengthen relationships with their local college campuses might take a lesson from the Texans Standing Tall's Nicole Holt and Drew Brooks who will present a workshop on "Catching Problems Upstream: Earlier Screening and Brief Motivational Interviewing" at CADCA's 21st annual National Leadership Forum.

CADCA members Texans Standing Tall have been using a U.S. Department of Education grant to help identify college students who are potential problem drinkers through the screening and brief intervention prevention strategy.

Holt, the coalition’s Executive Director, said they want to catch any problems “upstream” before students’ drinking causes them to hurt themselves or someone else or drop out of school.

“If this is a strategy that works, how can you replicate it and institutionalize it on multiple campuses?” she said.

Screening for alcohol problems can be used to identify students who may be at-risk for developing a problem with alcohol or who may already have a serious problem with alcohol. When used in conjunction with a brief intervention, alcohol screening can be a powerful tool for improving health. Students who screen positive for at-risk drinking can receive what is called a "brief intervention" – a brief counseling session with a health professional that focuses on motivation to reduce harmful levels of drinking.

Research has identified Greek societies, student athletes and first-year students as high-risk, target populations, said Texans Standing Tall Program Manager Drew Brooks.

Not all of the six institutes of higher education their program has focused on
have sororities and fraternities or organized athletic programs, but they all have first-year students, Brooks said.

The pilot program, in its second and final year, is working in campuses in Austin, Dallas, El Paso and Corpus Christi that are two or four-year institutions, public or private, rural or urban, with students who are campus residents or who commute to classes.

Presenters will describe the planning process used to develop, introduce, and implement this innovative approach at campuses within the Texans Standing Tall Statewide Coalition.

“Ultimately, we also want to develop a toolkit for our coalitions to use,” Brooks said. They are also working on a state-wide college “report card” that will discuss in a separate workshop presentation at the Forum.

The coalition partners with college health, recreation, and judicial system officials to administer the World Health Organization Audit screening tool within or outside of the classroom setting. The tool is a written questionnaire that asks 10 questions:

• How often do you have a drink containing alcohol?
• How many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking?
• How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion?
• How often during the last year have you found that you were not able to stop drinking once you had started?
• How often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking?
• How often during the last year have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session?
• How often during the last year have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking?
• How often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking?
• Have you or someone else been injured as a result of your drinking?
• Has a relative or friend, or a doctor or other health worker been concerned about your drinking or suggested you cut down?

Students see their scores and are offered a chance to have a 15-minute motivational intervention with a qualified advocate. The intervention is designed to help change behavior and provide a treatment referral if needed.

The coalition’s pilot program is especially important for campuses that don’t have a judicial center, or if a referral is needed, some smaller campuses don’t have the infrastructure for a treatment center or health clinic.

The coalition is trying to ensure students at schools like these—and at all of the state’s 200 colleges—are still provided the prevention, education and possible treatment they need and make it screening and brief intervention institutionalized and cost effective.

We know most students access alcohol off-campus, Brooks said. “So, we’re trying to create this way that campuses and communities can work together and to bridge the gaps and change things from a state perspective,” Holt added.

“Catching Problems Upstream: Earlier Screening and Brief Motivational Interviewing” is one of more than 100 workshops taking place at CADCA’s 21st Annual National Leadership Forum. The Forum will take place at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, right on the banks of the Potomac River and just minutes outside Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7-11, 2011. This year's theme, “Coalitions Moving Forward: Mapping the Future,” builds on the fact that there is a new landscape to navigate with many changes happening, but we as a field can create that roadmap for our future.

To learn more about this and other workshops at the CADCA Forum, plus awards nominations, exhibit registration, Community Prevention Day, Capitol Hill appointments, and other details, please visit CADCA’s Forum website.

Register now! Early-bird registration ends Dec. 17.