In 2019, the Hazel Pittman Center in Chester was awarded the Chester County Partnership for Success Project. Chester County is in northern South Carolina and has a population of 33,000. The target project population is youth ages 9-20 years old. The project addresses youth substance abuse through community mobilization and evidence-based prevention strategies to improve current systems and create sustainable change. The Partnership for Success Project will use the Strategic Prevention Framework to guide the implementation of evidence-based strategies including education curriculum, information dissemination, capacity building, and environmental strategies. The main goal of the project is to reduce alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use among youth in Chester County. Objectives for this project include: increasing the capacity among community partners t o address youth substance abuse, reducing the ease of access to substances through compliance checks and merchant education classes, reducing favorable attitudes towards youth substance abuse through education and information dissemination, and increasing the perception of risk associated with youth substance abuse through saturation patrols, party dispersals, and public safety checkpoints. PIRE received a subcontract to evaluate the project processes and outcomes.
