The Red Ribbon Coalition is funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy's Drug Free Communities program. Our long-term goal is to reduce substance abuse among youth in Anchorage. The Coalition contributes to the community by strengthening collaborations and supporting the city's prevention efforts. SAMHSA's Strategic Prevention Framework is the model used to assist the Coalition in implementing prevention work. This includes on-going assessments of the community, capacity building, planning & implementation of activities, and evaluation of our efforts.

Coalition Stratagies

The Red Ribbon Coalition implements CADCA's seven strategies for community change:

• providing information- educational presentations, workshops, etc,
• enhancing skills- workshops, programs or other activities designed to develop skills and competencies among youth, parents, teachers, and/or families to prevent substance abuse,
• providing support- creating opportunities to support people to participate in activities that reduce risk, enhance protection, and prevent substance abuse,
• modifying/changing policies- formal change in written procedures, bylaws, proclamations, rules, or laws with written documentation and/or voting procedures,
• changing consequences- increasing or decreasing the probability of a specific behavior that reduces risk or enhances protection by alerting the consequences for performing that behavior,
• enhancing access/reducing barriers- improving systems and processes to increase the ease, ability, and opportunity to utilize those systems and services,
• physical design- changing the physical design or structure of the environment to reduce risk or enhance protection.