Snohomish County Children's Commission

The Children's Commission currently
receives staff support from the Snohomish
County Human Services Substance Abuse
Prevention Unit. As such, the Commission
is excited to take on some future projects
aligned with the goals of County
Prevention.

Alcohol and other drug abuse is the root
cause of many of the serious problems
facing our communities today and is
conservatively estimated to cost
Washington State $1.8 billion each year
(Developing Healthy Communities in Washington: Communities That Care TM).
This problem strains our health care, social services, education and legal systems.
There is an immeasurable emotional and financial toll on families, and the County
Prevention Unit has a federal mandate to take a proactive approach to the prevention
of substance abuse. Their goals and objectives are refined by using county and
community data which is gathered on a regular basis to develop the needs
assessments used for policy development, program planning, resource allocation,
developing outcome measures and implementing prevention programs and services.

Many research studies have been conducted looking at a variety of approaches to
prevention programming and the misuse of a variety of substances to determine the
cost-benefit of substance abuse prevention. These studies provide valuable data as a
result of years of research. They estimate that for every $1 spent on substance
abuse prevention services, the range of cost savings to the community was between
$2 and $20. Benefits range from reductions in crime, automobile crashes, demand for
social services, health care costs and increases in education level and earnings
(Prevention Works! Costs Benefit Estimates from Prevention Research. Prepared by CSAP/SAMHSA
for the 2001 NPN Research Conference).

A great example of the Prevention Unit's work in our community is the prevention
project that has provided Granite Falls Middle School students with a curriculum called
Life Skills Training. As a result of this program, state data has demonstrated a
significant reduction in alcohol use (down 28%), cigarette use (down 27%) and
marijuana use (down 27%) for students in grades 6 and 10. In fact, the Life Skills
Training implementation was so successful it recieved the National Science to Service
Award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2007.
Check out the Everett Herald article here:

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070927/NEWS01/709270068

All of the research on prevention programming consistently demonstrates the societal
benefits of substance abuse prevention programs, including: reduced crime, increased
earnings, decreased child abuse and neglect, reduced medical costs, etc. Many of
these programs also address other adolescent problem behaviors like; teen pregnancy,
violence, juvenile delinquency, school drop out.

You can learn more about Prevention by checking out the resources on the left!