About Us

The DWI Substance Abuse Task Force serves Sierra County, NM, a rural area with a population of approximately 12,800, this is a diverse cultural community  The goals of the program are to: 1. reduce substance abuse among youth in Sierra  County, NM, and over time, among adults by addressing the factors in our community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse; 2. establish and strengthen collaboration among Sierra County’s  private nonprofit agencies, and Federal, State, and  local governments to support the efforts of community coalitions to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth.

The Truth or Consequences/Sierra County DWI program and the Substance Abuse Task Force attempts to provide a well balanced program for the community, funding is spread across all the components with the exception of Treatment. Out-patient treatment is available in the county for our offenders at a nominal cost but is not funded with DWI monies. Our project focus is to eliminate Sierra County’s DWI problem by utilizing everyone as part of the solution. To offer tools that will influence positive changes in norms.  With education, visibility, community support and intensive follow-up efforts through supervision, we intend to make an impact on numbers of individuals that will enhance their ability to choose and maintain healthy behavior. By limiting risk factors and supplying positive reinforcement with skill, the negative effects of alcohol and the number of DWI and related incidents can be greatly diminished. We continue to offer evidence based prevention programs and alternative activities for youth.

These goals will be accomplished through our Coordination, Planning, & Evaluation, Prevention, Screening, Alternative Sentencing (Teen Court), Domestic Abuse Screening program, Enforcement and Compliance, tracking efforts.  The strategies our programs are undertaking are meant to address not only DWI but the use and abuse of substances in the community with a focus on the issues our youth face here. We have tried to focus on community wide strategies, by not only educating and informing the community of the problems facing our youth but how the community can participate and come together to become a safer, caring, knowledgeable entity around all substance abuse and the problems that are created by the alcohol problems in the county.

The Coordinator will be responsible for implementing the strategies and organizing sub committees, volunteers and other contractors needed to continue activities. The Task Force will be responsible for oversight of the Coordinator and all evaluations.

1. The 4 core GPRA outcome measures will be collected through the Sierra County YRRS (youth risk and resiliency survey) which is done every other year in the County High School. The response rate in Sierra County was 89%.A high response rate produces survey results that are more representative of the student population. A response rate of at least 60% allows generalization of results to the entire student body. A response rate of 75% is excellent and allows a high degree of confidence in results. Low response rates indicate that the data is likely only representative of students who participated in the survey and may not necessarily represent the entire student body.

2. The Coordinator and the task force will review and track our progress on a quarterly basis,

3. We plan to review current standardized evaluations plans and create quantifiable local level performance measures, train program volunteers, contractors, and staff and provide technical assistance as needed.

 4. Media will also be involved with information to the community, through workshops and trainings we will continue to recruit inform and engage the target population and community members.

5. We will develop policies and procedures for review of annual evaluation plans, Review program training needs. Develop assessment tool to collect data on trainings and program needs.

6. The task force has worked in collaboration with many local organizations for more than 14 years that collect, analyze and report data, we have collected data to support the other projects we do in the community and have had evaluation in place for those activities on an ongoing basis. We also collect our own data through the DWI program, and evaluation is a key role of the coordinator who is the project director of this application. The task force is continually learning how to interpret data and evaluate services.

 

This project will primarily serve the populations of Sierra County; however no restrictions will be placed on the population to be served, although the residents of Sierra County are considered the priority population. This area encompasses over 4,180 miles which makes our county one of the largest in New Mexico and very rural, However because we have over one million visitors a year to Sierra County and we sit next to a major interstate we incur more costs and provide services to a much larger number than just our population.

T or C/Sierra County DWI Prevention Program