Congrats to the Literacy Coalition!

On May 8th the BOCES Consortium of Continuing Education held a press release at Kernan Elementary to celebrate their recent receipt of the WIA Title II Grant from the New York State Education Department. This grant awards them $200,000 annually for three years. BOCES Consortium of Continuing Education has been working hard with the help of 29 community partners to make this initiative a success. In addition these partners have offered $480,000 in kind. These monies will help to provide Family Welcome Centers, delivery of programs for adult students and children in the targeted community of West Utica. Literacy Zone staff will include: One fulltime Community Coordinator, three fulltime Adult Literacy Teachers, one fulltime Case Manager and one parttime Family Literacy Educator. This grant seeks to assist adults and out of school youth in accessing pathways out of poverty, improve adults’ basic education and literacy and strengthen family support for children’s education.
An additional goal of this group is to develop a functional and sustainable coalition to help implement these efforts, with or without the presence of money. We, at the Mohawk Valley Council on Alcoholism/Additions, as advocates for the Central Region Prevention Resource Centerare excited to share in this news. As discussed in the previous issue, the PRC’s vision
is to provide a network of prevention partners who support our communities in their
efforts to provide and maintain healthy, safe environments across the central region.
Research over the past two decades has tried to determine how drug abuse begins and
how it progresses. Identifying and understanding the risk and protective factors in
your community provides a solid base from which to begin planning. Risk factors can
increase a person's chances fordrug abuse, while protective factors can reduce the
risk. Most individuals at risk for drug abuse do not start using drugs or
become addicted. The table below describes how risk and protective factors
affect people in settings where interventions can take place.
Source:Excerpt from National Institute of Drug Abuse’s Preventing
Drug Use among Children and Adolescents

Identify red, focus on green

Risk Factors Domain ProtectiveFactors
Early Aggressive Individual SelfControl
Behavior

Lack of Parental Family Parental Monitoring
Supervision

Substance Abuse Peer Academic Competence

Drug Availability School Antidrug
Use Policies

Poverty Community Strong Neighborhood