Pubdate: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT) Copyright: 2000 The Billings Gazette Contact: P.O. Box 36300, Billings, MT 59101-6300 Fax: 406-657-1208 Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/ Author: Pat Bellinghausen - Billings Gazette Columnist MISSOULA OFFERS LESSONS IN HOW TO FIGHT DRUGS In the weeks since Gen. Barry McCaffrey visited this city and focused public attention on Montana's drug problems, Billings people who want to do something more about the methamphetamine epidemic have turned out by the dozens at two community meetings. How will this energy be turned into action? McCaffrey, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, didn't come out here to announce that the federal government planned to give Montana additional money or beef up drug enforcement staffing. Instead, he told state and local leaders that communities have to solve their own drug problems. However, there are a multitude of grants available to help communities jump-start drug prevention programs. The catch is that Congress has said federal anti-drug grants can only be used for projects that prove their effectiveness. When the Billings Healthy Communities Coalition, a group comprised of representatives from a wide range of local health organizations, was awarded a drug prevention grant recently, it was to fund programs that have been researched by other communities and found to be successful in reducing youth involvement with risky behaviors, such as use of alcohol and other drugs. Billings has made a start on community collaboration to fight drugs, but the numbers of methamphetamine addicts needing treatment, the amount of local crime caused by the drug trade and the number of children placed in foster care because of parental drug addiction demand that we do more. That will mean finding "best practices" that have worked elsewhere and are appropriate for this community. Billings leaders don't have to look any farther than Western Montana for an example of what community collaboration can achieve in the fight against drugs. A grant of $2.5 million to be used over three years, starting this school year, is boosting drug prevention efforts in Missoula County Public Schools. It took Missoula County planners, educators and other community members just about six weeks to pull together this successful grant application, according to Peggy Seel, a human services grants writer for the Missoula County Office of Planning and Grants. But community members have amassed information and built coalitions for collaboration over the past several years. That groundwork allowed the community members to move quickly when this funding from the departments of Justice, Education and Health and Human Services became available. Seel is one of three Missoula County employees whose job is writing human service grants. Large grants require a collaborative effort, Seel said. A coalition of organizations has a much better prospect of success than a single agency bidding for funding. Many people worked on this grant proposal. It was completed in a short time frame with the help a facilitator hired by the school district and district court, Seel said. The project will help Missoula children, ages preschool through high school, and their families to prevent violence and drug use. Part of the $2.5 million will fund police officers in middle schools and high schools and support safety measures in schools. It will provide a full-time mental health worker in each high school and each middle school. Elementary schools will have a half-time mental health professional. The grant also will increase the number of family resource centers in schools. This Missoula drug prevention effort began four years ago with one grant for a program in one middle school that was determined to be most in need, according to Peg Shea, director of Turning Point, a chemical dependency treatment program of the Western Montana Mental Health Center. Now the project, funded from various sources and grants, has 10 employees in the schools plus a Vista volunteer. Another grant, under the federal Drug-Free Communities program, includes money to pay for a half-time coordinator for the "The Forum," a Missoula community coalition working on improving services to youth. Shea said the youth prevention effort also has received an allocation of county alcohol tax revenues, state block grants from the federal government. A request to local government for gambling tax revenue was turned down, but the group will ask again, she said. Shea said the Missoula superintendent of schools is actively involved in the project, as are principals at schools where the prevention programs are offered. "It's a lot of work, but when I go in and out of schools and see what our youth development workers are doing, it's worth it," Shea said. - --- MAP posted-by: Allan Wilkinson