Tri-County Team Selected for Regional Academy

Three members of the Tri-County Team and Northland Coalition were selected to join the Service to Science Academy Dec. 5-6 in Austin, Tx. Applicants must be referred by their state prevention agency in order to submit an application. Each year approximately 60 prevention programs, from across the country, are selected to participate in this Academy.

Tri-County Prevention Director Vicky Ward, along with Prevention Specialists Laura Bruce, and Anh Dao, looked at ways to strengthen the coalition's evaluation components.  They were also awarded 30 hours of continued technical assistance, which will be used to develop professional documentation of the coalition’s methods and measurement.

Sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Service to Science is a national initiative designed to enhance the evaluation capacity of innovative programs and practices that address critical substance abuse prevention or mental health needs.

Service to Science provides customized technical assistance aimed at providing participants with the education, tools and follow-up guidance needed to evaluate their efforts with increasing levels of methodological rigor.

The academies are regionally based, face-to-face meetings where representatives focus on evaluation and related topics. TCMHS staff had the opportunity to work with an assigned external evaluation consultant to address specific evaluation needs in a day and a half workshop design geared toward moving their evaluation practices along the evidence-based continuum.

A Service to Science network community is developed whereby participants can share information about their communities and program activities with each other beyond meeting with their evaluation technical assistance providers.

Sponsored by Tri-County, the Northland Coalition was formed in 2000 to improve collaboration of substance abuse prevention programs. Throughout the last 11 years, the Northland Coalition has been recognized regionally and nationally for their program and policy outcomes. 

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