Orange County NC Website
peers and the wider community with disruptive neighborhood behaviors like <br />noise, trash, vandalism, or property damage. <br />Rather than an adversarial relationship like the one in our Oxford example, the <br />Chapel Hill Campus & Community Coalition is proof of true collaboration <br />between not just the town and university, but also between partners from across <br />Chapel Hill. Our coalition is funded equally by the town of Chapel Hill, UNC, the <br />Orange County Health Department, and the Orange County ABC Board. <br />Additionally, the coalition members are business owners, neighborhood <br />residents, students, and representatives from our funding groups. All of us <br />recognize that to create change, we must work together. <br />We are approaching this work with a public health mindset. This framework <br />allows us to see the issue as one of policies and systems, rather than just <br />problems with individuals. To use a popular analogy, when you come across a <br />sick fish in a river, the public health model doesn’t just treat the sick fish and <br />move on. Rather, the public health model encourages us to examine the river to <br />determine the cause of the fish’s illness. So, when we’re thinking about high -risk <br />drinking, our coalition looks at the entire community. <br />To change the culture of high-risk drinking in Chapel Hill our Coalition is using a <br />set of 22 comprehensive strategies. These strategies came from a year of <br />researching national best practices and collecting local data to determine the <br />issues we needed to address. Research tells us that no single program or <br />intervention alone is sufficient to effectively reduce high-risk drinking in a college <br />community. However, by addressing dangerous drinking with multiple tactics, we <br />are better able to have a real impact in our community. <br />The strategies we are using include policy recommendations, educational <br />initiatives, and an enhanced level of collaboration between organizations that <br />allows us to communicate and act consistently with a unified message. The most <br />significant coalition strategy already in place is the new Campus Alcohol Policy at <br />UNC. It focuses on education, prevention and accountability, as well as treatment <br />and recovery for those who need it. Other approaches include engaging in a <br />comprehensive set of strategies that are jointly administered and enforced by the <br />town and university to address off-campus parties and raising the awareness of <br />alcohol-related impacts among parents of high-school students, parents of <br />university students, and alumni of the University.