'Need not over' for Above the Influence work

11/18/2009

The Mount Vernon Sun

By Jake Krob

With one year left in a three-year grant, the Grant to Reduce Alcohol is making its mark on Mount Vernon and three other Linn County communities.

But Jennifer Husmann, administrator of the grant, made this clear at the Mount Vernon School Board meeting last week:

“Our need is not over yet,” she said.

Husmann provided the school board with grant accomplishments – Mount Vernon, Springville, Center Point and Central City received the grant in 2007. Locally, the most visible piece of the grant has been the Above The Influence Coalition.

A “big victory” for the grant, Husmann said, was Linn County’s passage of a social host law. It makes it illegal to allow a place for underage drinking.

She also detailed several other endeavors.

“In two years, there are quite a few things that small groups of people have accomplished,” she said.

They include:

• Training of about 80 employees who sell or serve alcohol.

• Getting the Linn County Sheriff’s Department to conduct alcohol compliance checks in rural Linn County for the first time in five years.

• Revising the Mount Vernon School District’s good conduct policy.

• Creating a parent-to-parent pledge program.

• Participating in parades and safety fairs.

• Holding community forums, including two featuring intervention specialists.

• Conducting more than 300 one-on-one interviews as a research and awareness tool.

• Starting a Life Skills program and a Leadership and Resiliency Program.

The group sponsored a forum at Cornell on the drinking age, and that spurred the college’s start of “Alcohol Edu” for students. Mount Vernon School Board member John Cochrane, the director of athletics at Cornell, said the online program is working.

“We’ve seen a dramatic reduction in our alcohol-related incidents,” he said.

Husmann also shared information about the Iowa Youth Survey, done in 2008. About 80 percent of the students statewide participate in the confidential survey, which collects information on everything from drug and alcohol use to bullying issues.

She talked about a few of the numbers. One is that among Mount Vernon’s 11th graders who took the survey last fall, 25 percent indicated having five or more drinks in a row on one day or more in the last 30 days. That compares to 21 percent in Linn County. She also noted marijuana use: Among 11th graders who took the survey last year, 19 percent indicated using the drug at least once on the past 30 days.

Husmann said such numbers show the need to continue efforts begun under the grant.

She talked about sustainability of programs after the grant runs out in a year. One possibility, she said, is to seek a Drug Free Community Grant. A fiscal agent is need for the grant and that could be the school district.

Board member Jeff Walberg wondered if any programs started by the Grant to Reduce Alcohol are sustainable without the grant.

Husmann said the Life Skills and Leadership and Resiliency programs could continue, with some financial support.

She concluded that a big piece of sustaining the work is having a coordinator, much like Main Street Iowa communities continue their work well into the future because of a staff member “keeping people coming to the table.”

More reports will be presented to the school board in the future, including a presentation from students in the Leadership and Resiliency Program.