CONCERNED CITIZENS

As a concerned citizen, you may be a private citizen or a member of business, faith-based, or other community groups. You recognize that children draw conclusions about alcohol use from what they see and hear in their families and communities. Alcohol use is often portrayed as a regular feature of leisure activities, and children see ads and billboards not only reinforcing that concept but often specifically targeting underage drinkers. Children may also attend local or family-focused events, which are sponsored by alcohol companies or for which drinking alcohol is part of the customary procedures of the event (e.g., weddings and other social gatherings). In these ways, society tells children that alcohol use is accepted, expected, and even essential to having a good time.

In this section, you will find questions to ask yourself — as a private citizen and as a member of business and other community groups — regarding prevention strategies for the community, some first steps you can take in the community, and resources for mobilizing communities that include both helpful publications and useful organizations. For additional information, see Statistics, The Community and What You Can Do, In the Community. As a concerned citizen, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you know how easily children in your community can obtain alcohol and what prevention methods communities can adopt to prevent underage alcohol access?

• Does your community have educational and prevention programs and policies designed to prevent underage drinking?

• Does your community have "alcohol-free" events? If not, do you know how to initiate them?

• Are public and private schools, community businesses, and local government and law enforcement institutions working together to develop and enforce policies related to underage alcohol use?

If you own or manage a business or community group, ask yourself these questions:

• Is your business or community group involved with alcohol prevention programs in your community?

• Does your business or community group have a written policy concerning the use of alcohol by your employees or members?

• Are you aware of specific programs offered to employees and families in the workplace, or members of social groups, that address alcohol use prevention?

• Do you and your employees know about community programs that address alcohol use prevention?

• Do members of your faith-based or other social groups know about community programs that address alcohol use prevention?

• Reduce availability by raising the price of alcoholic beverages, controlling the number of alcohol outlets, ensuring that servers and sellers are trained and licensed, and supporting keg registration.

• Improve enforcement by ensuring that sellers follow ID checking policies, conducting compliance checks, and deterring "third party sales" in which minors are obtaining alcohol from adults of legal age.

• Change community social norms by removing alcohol promotions that appeal to children and by sponsoring alcohol-free events.

The above strategies appear in the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free prevention booklet. For more information on science-based prevention strategies, see Keep Kids Alcohol Free: Strategies for Action.

First Steps For You

The suggestions below are good first steps to begin an underage alcohol prevention campaign in your community.

• Place underage alcohol use on agendas for PTA, local government, faith group, service club, and other community group and organization meetings.

• Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers. Ask them to print articles about the dangers of early alcohol use.

• Contact elected and appointed officials at local and State levels to inform them about the problem and what can be done to solve it.

• Increase support for consistent enforcement of existing underage drinking laws in your community.

• Encourage your schools to adopt constructive alcohol policies and prevention programs.

• Talk to teachers, counselors, school administrators, and school board members to make sure that school prevention programs put equal emphasis on alcohol and illicit drug use.

• Start public discussions about alcohol use by the children in your community with a focus on the messages your community is sending.

• Involve young people in your community’s existing prevention efforts.

• Support recreational alternatives to drinking and provide alcohol-free parties or events for young people.

• Encourage parents to learn about their responsibilities regarding alcohol access and service to children and adolescents in their homes.

• Talk to your children about the dangers of early alcohol use. Encourage friends and neighbors to talk to their children.

• Ask your health care provider to discuss alcohol use during your children’s annual physicals.

The key to mobilizing your community is to combine several of the strategies mentioned above in a comprehensive program. The following resources are good places to find information that will help you organize prevention efforts in your community.

Publications

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's (NIAAA) Initiative on Underage Drinking page lists free materials for use in local community efforts to prevent underage alcohol use. These include fact sheets and public service announcements for parents, educators and youth.

 

Alcoholism: Getting the Facts is designed to help individuals and families answer questions about alcohol problems. It contains information on both alcoholism and alcohol use, the symptoms of each, when and where to seek help, treatment choices, and additional resources. It can be ordered from NIAAA: English version: NIH Publication Number 96-4153 (Revised 2001); Spanish version: NIH Publication Number 97-4153-S (Revised 2001).

Community How-To Guides on Underage Drinking Prevention advise local advocates on how to deal with the following issues: coalition building, needs assessment and strategic planning, evaluation, prevention and education, underage drinking enforcement, public policy advocacy, media relations, and self-sufficiency. The Guides are a resource on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Impaired Driving Division's Web site. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Governors Highway Safety Association)

Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws: A Compendium of Resources is designed to assist States and localities with issues involving underage drinking. (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP))

Frequently Asked Questions on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (FAQs) includes information on how alcohol affects the body and suggestions on what to do if an individual or family member has an alcohol-related problem. It can be ordered from NIAAA: English version: NIH Publication Number 01-4735; Spanish version: NIH Publication Number 02-4735-S. (NIAAA)

The Making the Link fact sheets contain current statistics on a variety of topics relating to underage drinking including health issues, access to alcohol, and public opinion. They were prepared by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)/Center for Substance Abuse Prevention to support the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free initiative (PDF files):

Underage Drinking and Academic Performance
Underage Drinking and Access to Alcohol
Underage Drinking and the Future of Children
Underage Drinking and Girls' Health
Underage Drinking and Mental Health
Underage Drinking and Public Opinion
Underage Drinking and Risky Behavior
Underage Drinking and Violence

The Mental Health Information Network (MHIN)Web site provides access to quality-filtered mental and physical health information to health professionals, consumers, students and others. The MHIN, a collaboration between  Boston University Alumni Medical Library and the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, is funded by the National Library of Medicine. 

Prevention Enhancement Protocols System (PEPS) — Preventing Problems Related to Alcohol Availability: Environmental Approaches provides an extensive discussion of the many prevention approaches that communities can take to address and prevent underage alcohol use. (SAMHSA)

Prevention Platform is an online interactive tool that provides a step-by-step guide for those interested in developing prevention programs. It includes procedures for conducting needs assessments, building capacity, selecting best and promising interventions, and conducting evaluations. (SAMHSA)

Prevention Works Through Community Partnerships presents findings that community partnerships are effective in preventing alcohol and drug abuse.  (SAMHSA).

Regulatory Strategies for Preventing Youth Access to Alcohol: Best Practices provides guidance for shaping and implementing laws and regulations to restrict underage access to alcohol. (OJJDP)

Strategies to Reduce Underage Alcohol Use: Typology and Brief Overview provides strategies available to prevent underage alcohol use and the level of effect that might be expected from each strategy. (OJJDP)

Too Smart to Start, sponsored by SAMHSA is an underage alcohol use prevention initiative for parents and caregivers of 9-to-13 year-olds as they teach their children about the harms of alcohol, and participate in their activities.

Underage Drinking Prevention – Action Guide and Planner suggests strategies for implementing coordinated prevention activities; identifies themes and issues around which to organize campaigns; and includes relevant statistics, sample letters, press releases, speeches, and other materials to adapt for local campaigns. (SAMHSA)

Organizations

America's Partners to Prevent Underage Drinking (AP) is a national coalition formed of individuals and organizations committed to curbing underage drinking through education, technology and policy initiatives. AP's Web site, beawarenow.org, provides State and research resources including: facts by State and news stories by State; information on Congressional legislation; a Media Room; and Studies. (America's Partners is led by The International Institute of Alcohol Awareness, a project of Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation)

Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) provides resources and training to community coalitions. For example, CADCA  developed a "Greenhouse Program" to improve the effectiveness of new and ongoing community coalitions. The Greenhouse training initiative will help local groups develop effective anti-drug coalitions by giving up to 30 communities with newly developing coalitions (maximum one year since inception) an opportunity to explore and learn what makes community coalitions successful in achieving measurable results.

The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s (CSAP) Centers for the Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPTs) are regional centers to assist States/jurisdictions and community-based organizations in the application of the latest research-based knowledge to their substance abuse prevention programs, practices, and policies.

The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University monitors the marketing practices of the alcohol industry to focus attention and action on industry practices that jeopardize the health and safety of America's youth. The Center is supported by grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

FACE: Truth and Clarity On Alcohol has training modules to assist with building community support to prevent youth access to alcohol.

Join Together Online provides practical resources to help communities develop new alliances and find creative solutions to prevent alcohol use by young people.

Kettering Foundation sponsors National Issues Forums, which are public deliberations at the local level through which citizens can share perspectives, confront issues, and shape public opinion.

Lowe Family Foundation is a not-for-profit public charity whose mission is to educate the general public about the disease of alcoholism, and its effects on families, children, and individuals. The Foundation provides resources including interviews, question and answer sessions with prevention specialists, publications, and information from its Families and Communities Together (FACT)  program.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a grassroots organization with more than 600 chapters nationwide, seeks effective solutions to drunk driving and underage drinking problems. To find the MADD chapter nearest you, see or visit your State by clicking on the map on our home page.

National Clearinghouse for Drug and Alcohol Information (NCADI) provides current information and materials for parents, teachers, youth, and communications and health professionals about preventing alcohol, tobacco, and drug use by young people.

National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) assists groups and individuals seeking to support young people and their families by sharing information through its Web site, providing materials for distribution at conferences and training events, conducting research on topics of interest, and partnering with others who are working on similar issues. See the NCFY section for Parents and Community Members. (Family and Youth Services Bureau)

National Family Partnership conducts the annual Red Ribbon campaign to create public awareness and mobilize communities to combat alcohol and drug use among youth.

The Office of Juvenile Justice Enforcement of Underage Drinking Program provides training, technical assistance, and resource materials to the States as they implement the OJJDP block grants to enforce underage drinking laws.

The Ohio Resource Network Bridgebuilders Project provides training, technical assistance, and resource materials to communities regarding the implementation of the Bridgebuilders Model for preventing underage drinking in rural areas.  For more information on the Bridgebuilders Project, call 1-800-788-7254, opt 2.