LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar wrote a letter to the County Council requesting approval to receive federal funding to continue the Partnership For Success grant.
He requested $110,000 to supplement the program through Sept. 21, 2021.
The Partnership For Success is a education program that began in 2018 to address underage drinking and substance abuse.
The funds will be used to assess the needs of the community, implement programs, and to evaluate the success and failures.
The purpose of Hawai‘i’s Strategic Planning Framework — Partnership For Success project is to improve the quality of life for residents of Hawai‘i by implementing the five steps of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s SPF process.
The five steps are: assess needs, build capacity, planning, implement and evaluate.
Based on statistical metrics provided by the Hawai‘i State Epidemiological Profile, Native Hawaiian and Caucasian students reported the highest rate of alcohol abuse across the majority of indicators compared to other ethnicities.
Alcohol among all age groups is the No. 1 drug of choice for youth, though between 2011 and 2017 the number of known users stagnated.
“Youth alcohol use on Kaua‘i remained largely flat between 2011 and 2017,” Kollar said. “Rates of youth who ever used alcohol decreased in those six years, but current use, current binge drinking and early alcohol use showed no significant changes.”
Statistical measures related to drug abuse have also remained stagnant, but there is still a concern of use among high-school-aged kids.
“There were no apparent differences among genders across indicators,” Kollar said. “With regards to differences across grade levels of high school, 12th-graders reported significantly higher percentages of youth reporting use than did ninth-graders for every year examined.”
As the program moves into the new decade, the fundamental goal for the Partnership For Success remains the same.
“A goal of the SPF process aims to aid in the development of more-effective prevention strategies and sustainable prevention infrastructures statewide,” Kollar said. “This is to reduce and prevent underage drinking.”
