Growing Up Tobacco-Free - Collaborating to Implement Change in Rural Alaska

Audience:

Coordinators and administrators working in any of the following areas will likely benefit from this presentation:

• Tobacco prevention and cessation
• Community development
• Programs for underserved and rural populations

Key Points:

• Collaboration between community health organizations and community educational institutions can be successful partnerships working to increase systems that address tobacco use.
• The following core concepts were instrumental in developing this community based initiative:  
  • Implementing tobacco screening and intervention in a community program.
  • Training community based staff around the impacts and risks of tobacco use on children, families and communities.
  • Partnering to raise community  awareness
• Culturally relevant project activities and modifications are necessary to meet the unique individual needs of community based tobacco intervention programs.

The Growing Up Tobacco-Free In Alaska community initiative that weaves the expertise of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) with the community experience of the Rural Alaska Community Action (RurAL CAP) Head Start Program to increase systems that address tobacco use in 24 rural Alaskan communities will be shared to demonstrate these key points.

Educational Experience:

Presenters will describe the collaborative community initiative, discuss the core concepts, share samples of project activities, present project measures and current outcomes and discuss future implementation and systems change projects.  Participants will interact with each other and presenters to complete tasks to identify adaptations of this model that could be implemented in their work.

Benefits:

The audience will leave with fresh ideas to develop innovative tobacco intervention programs.