RD363 - Annual Report of the Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention


Executive Summary:
In recent years, The Governor’s Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (GOSAP) has laid the foundation for a strong prevention infrastructure at the state level by organizing the GOSAP Collaborative, by achieving consensus around a cross-agency strategic plan for prevention, and by developing a memorandum of agreement setting forth prevention principles and standards to which all 13 state agencies with prevention responsibilities agreed. This year, GOSAP is pleased to report that Governor Kaine formally established the GOSAP Collaborative in Executive Directive 4, signed on November 10, 2006. The GOSAP Collaborative has served as the primary vehicle for prevention system planning and collaborative decision-making at the state level since 2002. In Executive Directive 4, the Collaborative is formally granted numerous powers and duties in three areas: 1) collaboration to enhance prevention capacity, improve efficiency and produce results; 2) infrastructure to sustain and integrate prevention into practice, and 3) data to target resources and monitor results.

"Prevention Comes First" is Governor Kaine’s multi-component prevention initiative to promote the positive development of Virginia’s youth by addressing the risk factors that lead to adolescent problem behaviors. "Prevention Comes First" is designed to coordinate the prevention activities of law enforcement, educators, state and local prevention professionals and families throughout the Commonwealth, and features interagency collaboration, opportunities for youth, public awareness, training and tools for communities. Under this initiative, the following accomplishments have been achieved:

• Virginia’s Interagency Anti-Gang Workgroup has coordinated anti-gang activities at the state level and provided support to communities in their gang prevention efforts.

• Opportunities for positive youth development have been provided through the Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Project summer youth leadership conference. Beginning in December 2006, the Governor’s Youth Community Service and Civic Engagement Program will provide mini-grants to localities to engage youth at risk for gang involvement in meaningful service to their communities.

• Public awareness and training have been provided through:

- gang awareness public service announcements in both English and Spanish that have been broadcast throughout Virginia;
- development of prevention training and dissemination of prevention materials through the Virginia Mentoring Partnership;
- Twenty-six one-day gang prevention workshops provided at no cost to over 1,000 school personnel, law enforcement, juvenile justice workers, social services personnel and other interested professionals across Virginia; and,
- training for over 400 educators, law enforcement officers and community prevention professionals to strengthen the capacity of schools and communities to use school discipline crime and violence data for school safety and prevention program planning.

• The Virginia Community Profile Database, a one-stop, web-based, interactive tool available via the GOSAP website, provides easy access to a variety of community-level data and prevention resources for use in conducting community needs assessments, targeting resources and planning programs and services.

GOSAP has also supported numerous prevention efforts in communities by providing valuable informational resources and prevention grant programs.

- The GOSAP website (www.gosap.virginia.gov) continues to serve as the GOSAP Collaborative’s central clearinghouse for prevention information, resources and best practice information.
- Governor’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act grants have increased data-driven prevention planning and the use of evidence-based programming throughout Virginia. For 2006-07, grants have been awarded to 21 projects to support youth substance abuse and violence prevention efforts in more than 35 Virginia communities. Evaluations of projects funded in 2005-06 have provided strong evidence of effectiveness.
- Governor’s Protect and Respect Intergenerational grants allowed 12 community, faith-based, school and senior service organizations to implement intergenerational projects that involved youth working together with seniors to improve the overall safety environment for both. Over the course of this three-year program, over 250 youth were matched with senior mentors and over 400 youths were involved with crime prevention activities benefiting themselves and seniors.

Consistent with its statutory responsibilities and Governor Kaine’s Executive Directive, and building upon substantive recent achievements, GOSAP will continue to provide leadership and coordination of the Commonwealth’s prevention activities. The powers and duties granted to the GOSAP Collaborative in the Governor’s Executive Directive 4 (2006) provide the primary blueprint for future action. In addition to the activities specified in Executive Directive 4, GOSAP will continue to focus on building local prevention capacity and supporting local prevention efforts through training, informational resources and tools and prevention grant programs.