“Promoting Healthy Choices”

CTP, Inc. believes that primary prevention of social and behavioral problems is accomplished through the development and implementation of activities that aim at reducing the probability of disability or dysfunction through ongoing processes that provide opportunities for individuals, families, communities, and organizations to increase:

1. knowledge or awareness of high risk behaviors and consequences,
2. skills necessary to change those high risk behaviors, and
3. accessibility of resources which assist people to effectively cope with typical life problems.

Drive Smart Pueblo - Seat Belt and Car Seat Safety The Office of Prevention School Based Prevention Programs Parenting Classes DUI Prevention - Smart Roads

Community Partnerships Pueblo Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking Pueblo Alliance for Healthy Teens (PAHT) Adolescent Programs

DRIVE SMART PUEBLO - Seat Belt and Car Seat Safety MISSION STATEMENT: DRIVE SMART Pueblo is a cooperative community effort involving business, non-profit agencies, government agencies, the law enforcement community and concerned citizens organized as an alliance to reduce traffic related crashes, injuries, and deaths through improved awareness of transportation safety and systems.

GOALS

1. To create awareness on alcohol and drug related driving and/or accidents,
2. To educate the public on seat belt and child restraint usage,
3. To increase public awareness regarding high accident intersections, and
4. To speak to other related areas as needed.

Drive Smart Pueblo is a non-profit community coalition that promotes traffic safety through awareness and education. Drive Smart Pueblo conducts monthly Child Car Seat Safety Checks. We ensure that children leave checkpoints safer than when they arrived. If there are structural problems with the seat, we provide new seats that have been donated to Drive Smart Pueblo. Check points always have certified technicians on hand.

Car Seat and Seat Belt Safety Occupant Protection programs are a collaborative effort between Crossroads and Drive Smart Pueblo. Monthly Infant/Child Car Seat Safety Checkpoints are offered in Pueblo, and regularly in Trinidad, the Arkansas Valley, and the San Luis Valley.

Fit Stations Certified Car Seat Technicians instruct parents on the appropriate installation of car seats. Car Seats are provided free or at a minimal cost for unrestrained children and unsafe car seats are replaced with new ones at these checkpoints. The goal of this program is that all children leave our checkpoints safer than they arrived.

For more information: www.carseatscolorado.com

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The Office of Prevention works to enhance and promote healthy communities including school, family, individual, workplace, and agency settings. The Office of Prevention provides Southern Colorado communities access to culturally appropriate technical assistance, training, and information programming.The Office of Prevention provides assistance in various aspects of substance abuse prevention technology including network, grant writing, program evaluation and design, policy formulation, community organization, and various organizational and program development topics.

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CTP recognizes that the schools’ social system is able to facilitate the reestablishment of a stable peer support system by placing students together in classroom settings. The Life Skills Training materials are presented in a classroom setting and the lessons are interactive with the instructor and other students.

The following schools will conduct “Life Skills Training” throughout the school year: in Huerfano County - Aguilar, John Mall, and La Veta schools; in Pueblo School District #60, Pitts, Roncalli, and Heaton Middle Schools, and Centennial and South High Schools. Students receive “Alternative to Suspension” Programming using the “Project Towards No Drug Abuse” SAMHSA Model Program to include a Parenting Component. Students attend fifty-five minute sessions twice a week for five weeks. Students receive substance abuse prevention material, as well as activities for applying strategies at home and within the community.

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The parenting aspect of the program is an integral part of family strengthening. The program strives to build stronger communities by empowering individuals and supporting families. This can occur through appropriate parenting as a prevention strategy is utilized to promote healthy families through positive parent-child interactions, communication, and discipline techniques.

Partners in Parenting is a research based curriculum designed to provide parents enrolled in CTP inpatient programs with information to strengthen family relationships through positive parenting techniques. While the curriculum provides information in the healthy development of children, the curriculum also helps parents recognize the warning signs and factors contributing to high risk behaviors and negative peer pressure. The six lessons of the curriculum include:

1. Personal Development - Self-Esteem
2. Making a difference - Self-Esteem, Resiliency and Development Assets
3. Communication
4. Effective Discipline
5. Problem solving and Decision Making
6. Facts about alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs
7. Peer pressure and accepting responsibility

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Smart Roads is a DUI prevention program in Pueblo designed to educate local community businesses on the effects of impaired driving on youth, families and communities. Crossroads’ Turning Points DUI programs use “Students Against Destructive Decisions” (SADD) and “Youth In Action” (YIA) to promote not drinking and driving.

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• Local people can best solve local problems:

1. A local advisory board identifies community needs.
2. Local people are hired to fill vacant staff positions.

• People support what they create:

1. Local advisory board members develop strategic plans to address community concerns.
2. A partnership plan was developed through the leadership of several agencies.
3. Staff positions may be blended.
4. Funding streams are blended.
5. There is an agreement to eliminate “turf” issues.
6. A partnership plan was developed through the leadership of several agencies.

• In order for community-based partnerships to be successful, all facets of the community including law enforcement, community agencies, parents, concerned citizens, and local faith-based organizations must be involved and committed to working with each other to eliminate the abuse of alcohol and drugs by young people.

There is not one strategy or activity that will solve the alcohol and drug problems of our youth. Thus, everyone has to work together to develop a sound plan for addressing community problems.

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Pueblo Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking is a collaboration of Pueblo Police Department, School Resource Officers, Crossroads’ Turning Points Office of Prevention, Pueblo City Schools/District 60, Parkview Hospital and School Wellness Centers, District Attorney’s Juvenile Division, Drive Smart Pueblo, Municipal Court, Parents and Youth and other community leaders.

Each entity has a very specific role in the implementation of the Colorado Dept. of Health and Human Services, Division of Behavioral Health - Colorado Prevention Partnership Grant (CPPS). CPPS uses Enforcement Education and alternative activities to promote positive choices.

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The Pueblo Alliance for Healthy Teens (PAHT) evolved within the Coalition and is promoting positive choices and healthy alternatives to substance use and other closely related issues including violence prevention, mental health, suicide prevention, health insurance and reducing sexually transmitted diseases.

The Coalition was prompted by the traffic deaths in July 2004 and the community’s concern for traffic safety. The goal is to reduce the underage and binge drinking incidents by young people ages 12-17 by 5%-10% within the five years of this CPPS grant period.

For more information: www.paht.info

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Pueblo, Alamosa & Trinidad Adolescent Programs – a collaborative effort between CTP and local municipal courts to provide intervention and education services to adolescents involved with the legal system due to Alcohol and/or Drugs.

• Phase I is for first time offenders and is offered one Friday/Saturday a month for 5 hours of lecture, video, personal application, and experiential education, which is based on the research based Reconnecting Youth curriculum. Parents are required to be involved in a portion of this program.
• Phase II is conducted over two Fridays/Saturdays, for ten hours, and parents are required to attend two hours of education and adults may also attend Community Parenting Classes. The two-day program focuses more extensively on the decision-making process, personal responsibility and self-control.

Family integration is of great importance when addressing substance use issues.

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