S Grant - Community and Schools Phase III Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Initiative Grant Acceptance

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Smoking Control Rules in 1993 restricting ETS in public places, work sites and restaurants. In 1997 the Boazd of Health created asmoke-free committee, made up of OCHD and community representatives who worked to develop a county anti-smoking plan. This plan included encouraging restaurants to go 100% smoke-free and the group developed, published, and distributed asmoke-free dining guide that included more than 75 restaurants. In November 2000 the Healthy Carolinians Preventive Services committee organized activities for the Great American Smoke Out. The OCHD has also offered smoking cessation groups by request for many years and has a public health educator who is a trained American Lung Association cessation group facilitator. OCHD is a government organization with the capacity to oversee a project such as this one with ease. The OCHD has three health educators with experience in tobacco use prevention and cessation. The current program coordinator for youth tobacco use prevention is a full-time Senior Health Educator with a Masters degree in Public Health. This position is in the Division of Health Promotion and Educational Services. The coordinator has extensive training and experience in program planning, implementation, and evaluation. The coordinator also has nearly two years of experience managing the youth tobacco-use prevention grant. The program coordinator has received training and technical assistance from the North Carolina Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch (TPCB), has attended a national conference on tobacco control, and is a graduate of the North Carolina Governor's Academy of Prevention Professionals (GAPP) training in substance abuse prevention. The Director of the Health Promotion and Education Division, also holding a MPH, provides oversight for the program. The Lead applicant employs undergraduate and graduate level interns to assist with program implementation and trains interns as TATU and NOT/ATS facilitators. Additionally, the lead applicant has trained more than 40 youth peer educators and organized American Lung Association trainings for 24 adult NOT/ATS facilitators. Peer educators from the program have been invited to present to other county youth and have assisted the Central Region Question Why Youth Empowerment Center with an out-of- county training. OCS has 6,628 students in grades pre-K through 12, including seven elementary, two middle and two high schools. The Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) has 10,350 students in grades pre-k through 12. There are 8 elementary, 4 middle and 2 high schools. Both districts are committed to working with the OCHD to prevent tobacco use in teens and eliminate youth exposure to ETS. Both districts will continue to survey students on an annual basis and provide survey results to the OCHD for evaluation purposes. CHCCS have been 100% tobacco -free since 1990 and can continue to provide guidance to the OCS as they strengthen the enforcement of their 100% TFS policy. The School Health Coordinators from each school system will act as liaisons for the tobacco prevention coordinator from the health department. They will help to facilitate entry into the schools and connect the coordinator with the appropriate teachers, classes and students to implement the project. In particular, the School Health Coordinators and other school-based personnel will continue to provide in-kind contributions totaling 20 hours a month. Both school districts have health and physical education teachers that currently provide basic health education on the dangers of tobacco use on human health. These teachers work closely with TRU peer educators to schedule Tobacco 101 and other presentations. As a result of the current program, 24 school-based personnel (2 in each middle and high school) are trained as adult facilitators for the NOT/ATS programs. 15