Creating social change to advance healthy youth development in our communities through collaborative approaches to prevention, intervention and treatment.

The substance abuse prevention alliance (sapa) is a community coalition supporting accomplishment of the city county health department's, community health improvement plan and united way's, graduation matters initiative substance abuse prevention, intervention and treatment. The sapa is maintained through a novel blending of funding. Alliance for youth secured drug free community support program, sober truth on prevention of underage alcohol use (stop) act and title ii funding to support accomplishment of sapa objectives to prevent and reduce youth substance abuse, and over time, adult substance abuse. The alliance is founded on the premise that substance abuse correlates and contributes to other behaviors that interrupt youths' ability to reach their full potential. The sapa is a very diverse coalition of dedicated professionals and community members that courageously and diligently work to make cascade county an even more vibrant and healthy place to live in montana. The coalition has representation from: city county health department, benefis health care, montana highway patrol, gateway community services, united way, university of great falls, great falls police department, great falls public schools care program, great falls interfaith association, central assembly church, in his hands faith group, holy spirit parish, walker design group, krtv, youth court services, malmstrom airforce base, students from surrounding schools, and parents from within the great falls community. alliance for youth provides, free of charge, ymhfa training to adults in the community in an effort to move towards widescale knowledge of behavioral health issues that affect youth and to become more effective in addressing behavioral health issues affecting adolescents, which include anxiety, depression, psychosis, eating disorders, ad/hd, and substance abuse disorder. Ymhfa builds understanding of the importance of early intervention and teaches individuals how to help an adolescent in crisis or experiencing a mental health challenge. The course teaches participants the risk factors and warning signs of a variety of mental health challenges common among adolescents, symptoms of a mental illness or in an emotional crisis by applying a core five step action plan. circle of security parenting (cosp) and nurturing parenting (np): attachment theory, evidence-based programs designed to improve parents' understanding of the needs of their children and improve appropriate parent response to meet the children's needs. Parents with children ages 0-12 years are the targeted population. The programs incorporate visually-based teaching methodolgies, reflective dialogue(provider-parent), social support networks, accountability, and observed and coached "practive" in applying newly learned skills. Cosp and np are accomplished through a combination of 8-10 facilitated group education/skill building sessions and 1-5 individual skill buildign sessions. The number and depth of individual sessions are need based. other program services which include red ribbon week