Structure of Washington's Prevention System
History of DASA and Its Prevention Program
The Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA), formerly named Bureau of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, has been administering prevention services since the formation of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Prior to DASA, prevention services, planning and administration, was managed by the State Office of Drug Abuse Prevention and the Governor's Drug Abuse Prevention Office.
Up until 1985, substance abuse prevention services were developed and administered primarily from state funds and competitive federal project resources. The federal resources moved from competitive in nature to block grant format in the mid 1980's under the Reagan Administration. This block grant mandated that 20 percent be set aside for primary prevention services from the total federal funding received for all substance abuse related services. DASA worked with program developers to establish youth-focused curricula and strategies, mostly in school settings.
As public funds were limited, the division collaborated closely with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington Traffic Safety Commission to share funds and develop joint strategies. The division initiated a contractual relationship with county governments to manage prevention services at the local level. In 1986, President Reagan declared a new "War on Drugs" in America. President Nixon made a similar declaration in the early 1970's. As a result of President Reagan's declaration and persuasion, Congress passed the 1986 Federal Omnibus Drug Act.
That act included the Feral Block Grant which dramatically increased the primary prevention resources allocated to states. Funding was also increased to schools, K-12 and Higher Education, and communities through the development of the Drug Free Schools and Communities Programs.
As a result of the "War on Drugs", the federal Department of Health and Human Services created the new Office of Substance Abuse Prevention (which became the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, CSAP, in 1992). This new federal agency funded demonstration programs to states and local committee on a competitive basis. It is through these demonstration grants, as well as the federal block grant to states, that the prevention field began to grow and develop new technologies and strategies to address the prevention needs in our country.
The division established a prevention system infrastructure in Washington State with the new resources. This system retained the county government contracting process as the primary mechanism to provide community-based programs. In addition to the county-based services, federal resources were used to develop statewide programs (conferences, trainings, newsletters, and more) which supported the county programs.
In order to support this infrastructure, DASA encouraged county governments to hire county prevention specialist to manage the resources. Most of the efforts at this time were focused on community and youth education.
In the late 1980's, a body of research was compiled by University of Washington researchers which examined the risk factors associated with adolescent substance abuse and other adolescent health behavior problems. In addition to identifying risk factors, the researchers looked at factors that would serve as a protection to reduce or mitigate the influence of the risk factors. Complementing the new direction, a federal demonstration grant was secured from CSAP to pilot a risk and protective factor planning process in each county throughout the state.
It was during the late 1980s and early 1990s that the prevention community began to address the need for family and community programs administered outside the school setting. Research studies were supporting the need for comprehensive, multi-strategy approaches to prevention services.
In 1993, the division moved from contractors prioritizing programs and strategies to identifying factors that put children and adolescents at risk for substance abuse. Once the risk factors were identified, strategies were chosen to reduce those risk factors when possible and to include efforts to increase protective factor components. Contractors were also required to evaluate their strategies and begin to address the question "What works?"
The division continues to support the risk and protective factor framework for prevention services planning. During the 1995-97 Biennium, the division took steps to prepare the county prevention specialists to develop county prevention action plans based on the risk and protective factor framework which includes outcome and process evaluations.
In addition to contracting with county governments, the division established Native American prevention efforts through a request for proposal (RFP) process,targeting culturally appropriate prevention efforts for, roughly, 2 percent of the total state population. While most counties had a prevention coordinator on staff, very few tribes had prevention staffs at all. Tribal projects were implemented by volunteers, or staff members stretching their limits to plan, design, implement, and evaluate the effort.
Stretching their professional and personal capacity, community volunteers made the effort to learn some of the latest prevention approaches and methodologies. By taking vacation or unpaid leave, Native American prevention workers attended National Prevention Conferences, risk-protective factor trainings and many DASA-funded training events. Tribal communities have a focus on the future in their efforts. In Indian Country, it has been said that community healing IS prevention. Tribal communities benefit greatly from projects that bring multi-generational groups together to learn and talk.
The division's prevention initiative has two main goals: (1) to delay the onset of use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, and (2) to reduce the misuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.
The objectives are many and far-reaching. The division's prevention program supports legislative efforts to reduce early initiation and misuse of substances, including regulating alcohol and tobacco advertising and levying taxes on their sale. The division supports the restriction of the use of tobacco products at chemical dependency treatment facilities. Through the risk and protective factor approach to prevention programming, a far-reaching objective is to have outcomes showing reductions in risk factors and an increase in protective factors in the primary social environment of community, family, school, and the individual and his/her peers.
The division's prevention programs are focused on the following:
POPULATIONS: children who have not begun using alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs, followed by youth facing multiple risk factors, and other populations at risk. Individuals with strong influence over these priority groups are included as intermediary targets, i.e. parents of very young children and pregnant women.
APPROACHES/STRATEGIES: strategies that have strong justification and have been well evaluated at other sites (this must include enhancement of protective factors or reduction in risk factors), those that have an appropriate alcohol, tobacco, and other drug component, those that are competent with respect to culture, gender, and age.
PROGRAMS that meet preferred community program standards: those that balance efforts between targeting high risk communities and priority populations generally; those that address community, family, school, and individual/ peers; those that use multiple approaches to address multiple risk factors, and those that result from community prevention planning teams.
Role of Division prevention staff:
The division's prevention staff, like the DASA staff for treatment services, does not provide direct substance abuse prevention services. The funding for prevention programming comes directly from the federal government in the form of an annual block grant allocation. The prevention unit is responsible for monitoring the funds based on specific federal guidelines.
The majority of the block grant funding is provided to county governments for community programming. The prevention staff work in concert with county representatives to develop policies and procedures that will maximize the use of the funds, based on federal guidelines. The prevention staff work to identify and secure materials and training that assist community programs in implementing successful prevention programs. They also provide assistance to ensure reasonable evaluations of community programs.
A portion of the federal funds is allocated to the division's program manager for Native American services. Prevention staff work with the program manager and participating Native American programs upon request.
The prevention staff manage statewide projects, such as the substance abuse clearinghouse. They also develop and manage special demonstration projects, such as initiatives to address substance abuse prevention with special populations. These include prevention of fetal alcohol syndrome and prevention work with the elderly population and persons with disabilities.
Time and energy are spent in working with other state agencies which have interest in substance abuse prevention. The goal of the prevention staff is to work towards a statewide substance abuse prevention agenda.
Role of the Native American Liaison in prevention efforts:
The Native American liaison serves as program manager for Native American Special Projects, managing up to 50 contracts per biennium. The position also serves as liaison between the division, the 27 federally recognized tribes, the nine non-recognized tribes, and all the urban non-profit programs that represent 70 percent of the state's Native American population. The liaison assists programs in interpretation of funding intent, program design and implementation, inter- and intra-governmental issues, as well as assisting individuals caught in the crunch of the system. Numerous other DASA services, including outpatient and residential treatment, prevention, certification of counselors, certification of programs, and staff and community training, all affect Indian Country in some way. The liaison works closely with the tribes as an advocate for state and tribal governments.
Role of the County Prevention Specialist:
A portion of the funding provided to counties for prevention efforts is designated for the "county prevention specialist," who coordinates and implements the substance abuse prevention efforts funded by DASA within the county. While the responsibilities of the prevention specialists are similar in many ways, actual duties vary from county to county, depending on the size of the county and the structure of each county's administration.
For many of the smaller counties in Washington, the prevention specialist often does direct service activities, such as conducting parent education classes or working with students at schools, In contrast, prevention specialists in larger counties often act as contract managers, subcontracting DASA's funds through request for proposal processes.
Regardless of the size of county, there are several duties that most prevention specialists are responsible for completing, for example: collecting data on the prevention programs, preparing prevention progress reports and grant applications, participating in statewide meetings and trainings, collaborating with various community groups and agencies on substance abuse prevention activities, and providing information and technical assistance to schools and community groups.
STATE-LEVEL BOARDS CONCERNED WITH PREVENTION: There are three bodies that provide direction for prevention efforts in this state:
DASA’s CITIZEN ADVISORY COUNCIL (CAC), mandated by RCW 70.96A.070, consists of a mix of people, some of whom have been in recovery for at least two years. The remaining members are representative of the community and include business and industry, organized labor, the judiciary, and minority groups. The CAC offers advice regarding programming and, in conjunction with department staff, local government, and providers, develops implementation rules for consideration by the Secretary of DSHS.
THE GOVERNOR'S COUNCIL ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE (The Council) was created by Governor Mike Lowry in 1994. The Council develops and coordinates solutions to Washington State's problems stemming from the misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.
WASHINGTON INTERAGENCY NETWORK AGAINST SUBSTANCE ABUSE (WIN) is a group of mid-managers from ten state agencies who come together voluntarily to build a team based on vision, respect, trust, and teamwork that addresses the issues of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse in a comprehensive manner. Its newsletter, FACE IT, has a readership of about 3,000 and highlights programs of the various agencies.
A sub-group of WIN, Prevention Partners, consists of program coordinators from WIN agencies. These people come together to collaborate on project and program development, focusing on primary prevention. All of these agencies have adopted the risk and protective factor framework for their prevention planning.
The agencies represented include the Departments of Health; Social and Health Services; Community, Trade and Economic Development; Corrections; Employment Security; Licensing; and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; Liquor Control Board; Washington Traffic Safety Commission; Washington State Patrol; plus a representative from the Governor's Office.
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