WCSU Targets

Substance Abuse Prevention

DANBURY — Western Connecticut State University Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr Walter Bernstein, recently announced that the university is slated to receive more than $250,000 in grant funds during the next three years to develop a comprehensive prevention and education program focused on the dangers of substance abuse.

WestConn will be among the three other schools in the Connecticut State University system, as well as the University of Connecticut, to receive a portion of the $2.2 million grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Connecticut is one of only three states selected to receive such funding.

The grant will enable WestConn to act on several years of intensive research and planning by a campuswide task force.

“It’s not just about helping students that are in trouble — it’s also about helping empower the students who don’t partake in or abuse alcohol or other substances,” said Sharon Guck, a public health professional from Southbury hired to coordinate the university’s efforts.

The program is divided into three parts. First, the program will provide information and assistance to individual students who are identified as problem, at risk, or alcohol-dependent drinkers. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), strategies to engage these students as early as possible in appropriate screening and intervention services are vital. Events such as National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week and National Alcohol Screening Day are good examples of ways to reach out to students by providing free, anonymous testing and health information.

Second, the program will work to affect the behavior of the student body as a whole, addressing the factors that encourage high-risk drinking, such as widespread availability of alcoholic beverages to underage and intoxicated students, aggressive social and commercial promotion of alcohol, large amounts of unstructured student time, inconsistent publicity and enforcement of laws, and campus policies and student perceptions of heavy alcohol use as the norm.

Finally, Ms Guck will help establish contacts with within the community to form a coalition of individuals and organizations to change the broader environment and help reduce substance abuse for the long term. NIAAA research indicates that when college drinking is reframed as a community problem as well as a college one, campus and community leaders are more likely to come together to address it comprehensively.

“It’s clear that our administration is completely on-board, which is essential,” Ms Guck noted. “And I’ll be counting on the ideas and energy of student-driven initiatives, too.”

For more information, contact the WCSU Office of Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Prevention at 837-8899.