Missouri Partners in Prevention: A Statewide Initiative

Statewide Initiative Partners
Law enforcement and judicial officers from the twelve public-funded universities and college communities in the state of Missouri.

Total student enrollment
130,000 undergraduate full-time students (from all 12 member universities).

Member IHEs
The coalition includes one engineering university, Missouri University of Science and Technology and one historically black university, Lincoln University. Other participating campuses include: University of Central Missouri; Missouri Southern State University; Missouri State University; Missouri Western State University; Northwest Missouri State University; Southeast Missouri State University; Truman State University; University of Missouri-Columbia; University of Missouri-Kansas City; and University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Member Agencies
Missouri Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse; Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control; and the Missouri Department of Transportation's Highway Safety Division.

Program Description
The State of Missouri has had a statewide coalition, called Partners in Prevention (PIP), addressing issues of alcohol use and abuse since 1999. However, its members felt that the creation of a judicial coalition would provide training, technical assistance, and support to those who enforce laws and policies related to underage drinking. This collaborative partnership, between health and counseling professionals and their law enforcement and judicial counterparts, has been an essential ingredient to decreasing underage drinking among Missouri college students. Missouri universities and surrounding communities have a reciprocal influence on college student alcohol use. When colleges work with their surrounding communities to decrease alcohol-related problems, both benefit.

Therefore, in 2003 Missouri Partners in Prevention created a sister coalition called Missouri Partners in Environmental Change (PIEC). This statewide coalition is dedicated to reducing underage drinking among Missouri’s college students. The main focus of the PIEC proposal is to empower law enforcement, campus judicial officers, and prevention professionals from colleges throughout the state to become change agents in their communities. These change agents will help create campus, city, and state environments that support good decision making in regard to alcohol by the college students who attend the higher education institutions in Missouri. They become empowered through support materials, trainings, incentive programs, communication networks, and effective evaluations. This coalition promotes effective environmental management strategies that utilize coalition building, policy review, and limiting students’ access to alcohol.

This statewide coalition was designed to provide communication, support, and training and technical assistance related to environmental management strategies to decrease underage drinking. Since 2003, this group has met monthly, providing training to law enforcement and judicial officers on best practices in their field, and funding the implementation of best practice operations or educational events in each campus community.

Initiatives Undertaken by PIEC

• Funding for training campus judicial officers and campus and community law enforcement
• Attendance of law enforcement and judicial members at monthly meetings
• Relevant trainings provided to members throughout the year
• Technical assistance provided to members
• Participation of members on local campus/community coalitions
• Supported state law HB 36 Keg Registration, which was passed into law in July 2004

Desired Outcomes

• Increase in the number of campus/community coalitions throughout the state
• Increase in the skill level of those students and professionals who participate in training opportunities
• Collect baseline data on students at all participating Missouri colleges and universities
• Decrease in availability of alcohol to college students
• Increase in the number of alternative alcohol-free programming in the participating campus communities
• Decrease in student drinking rates, including heavy, episodic drinking, average number of drinks per week, and number of times students drink per week
• Decrease in the negative consequences of binge drinking including violence
• Increase in the accuracy of students' perception of their peer's AOD use

Results
In the first few years of the program, PIEC made strong progress pursuing their desired outcomes. PIEC program supported and funded campus-community coalitions in each of the twelve communities since its inception. PIEC is a co-sponsor of Meeting of the Minds, a regional conference that educates students and professionals about student leadership, peer education, and prevention strategies in relation to alcohol, other drugs, and other wellness topics. The 2007 conference included a law enforcement track. To assist with the collection of data on member campuses, Partners in Prevention developed the Missouri College Student Health Survey for implementation on PIP campuses in spring 2007.

Since its founding in 2003, PIEC observed the following changes on Missouri’s college campuses [Data from the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey, 2004 (n=7048) and 2005 (n=7129).] Of college students under 21 years of age:

• 38 percent decrease in average number of drinks consumed
• 10 percent decrease in regular (three times per week or more) alcohol use
• 10 percent decrease in students reporting that they were injured due to their drinking
• 5 percent decrease in binge drinking behavior
• 2 percent decrease in students reporting that they damaged property or fire alarm due to their drinking