UNIVERSITY GETS $187,500 GRANT FOR CENTER

Southeast Missouri State University has received a $187,500 three-year grant from the Missouri Department of Mental Health, Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse to establish a Community 2000 Support Center at the university.

Instrumental in writing the grant proposal were Jacque Hooper, associate professor of health and leisure at Southeast; Carol Veneziano, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Southeast; Ed Leoni, professor of health and leisure at Southeast; and Donna Boardman, who has been hired part time as a community prevention specialist with the center.

The center will assist the communities of Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Fredericktown in assessing their strengths and weaknesses in the area of substance abuse prevention, said Leoni, who has been named director of the center.

"We have to look at where we will be with these efforts in the year 2000," he said.

The Community 2000 Support Center is part of a newly established network of centers in 22 regional locations in Missouri.

Gart Pollard, prevention coordinator with the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, was on the Southeast campus Thursday to orient the support center staff about the Community 2000 program.

Under the grant, about 50 auditors will be trained in February to meet with community leaders in the areas of prevention and with those affected by drug abuse problems. The auditors' goal is to determine drug abuse resources in place and those needed to fight drugs in this region. The Missouri Association of Community Task Forces has awarded Southeast a $4,000 grant to train the auditors.

Leoni said the auditors, who will begin their work in March, will assess the region's needs through a qualitative method of research.

"We're real excited in that we are attempting to employ a research method that is fairly contemporary," he said. "Science usually employs quantitative methods."

The trained auditors will use dialogue and open-ended questions to assess the region's needs through contacts with regional leaders in areas such as law enforcement, schools and drug prevention.

"We selected a qualitative method because it is more adaptable to dealing with the issues that people confront on a daily basis," Hooper said.

Leoni called the audit "the most comprehensive community audit ever conducted in the area of prevention. We hope, as the program progresses, that these community leaders will share information with us."

The Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse also awarded Southeast a $1,000 grant to bring an expert to campus to train Community 2000 Support Center staff members about qualitative research, Leoni said.

In addition, Center staff attended a training session in Columbia in December presented by Bill Lofquist, a nationally known consultant, author, trainer and prevention specialist. He has conducted workshops on prevention in 41 states.

Boardman said the goal of the Community 2000 Support Center is to serve as a guide and to furnish resources to groups in the region which have been studying this problem for several years.

In 1988, the Missouri Division of Highway Safety and the Missouri Department of Mental Health established teams across the state to examine drug abuse problems.

Boardman said most of those teams, comprised of teachers, nurses, parents and community members, have been working within schools. The Community 2000 Support Center hopes to extend the efforts of those teams into community-based initiatives.

"We want to create a better sense of community," said Boardman, who has extensive background in prevention training and comes to the center from the Community Traffic Safety Program in the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

"We want to learn and become aware of the resources that are here. We are to be a guide, a facilitator. We are to share new knowledge and skills" in the area of prevention, but "we cannot be repairmen or a service provider."

Leoni said that "working within the schools has proven not to be enough" in eradicating drug abuse in area communities. "We've got to reverse trends by auditing the community. Our goal is to start at the very beginning in the core of the community."

Boardman said, "We want to develop a community where healthy resilient youths can grow up."

Abbie Crites, a 1993 Southeast graduate who also is serving part time as community prevention specialist at the center, said the Community 2000 program focuses on giving community members "ownership and empowerment" and encourages them to "take care of themselves."

The university also has received a $1,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Mental Health to help purchase a computer and database program called "HANDSNET" for the center. About 3,000 prevention organizations across the country are linked to the system, which can provide current information on legislation and a number of issues including prevention, children, families and welfare.

On-line assistance also is available through the program, Crites said.

The HANDSNET system will be available for public use in the Community 2000 Support Center which will be housed in the Parker Building on campus.

Hooper and Veneziano, who were instrumental in writing the grant proposal for the center, also will be involved in the Community 2000 program. Veneziano will serve as a collaborative systems specialist with the center, evaluating the center's effectiveness as it progresses, and Hooper will serve as the center's health success promotion specialist.