JOIN TOGETHER ATLANTIC COUNTY
www.jtacnj.org
Our Vision and Mission
Our Vision is to partner with youth, parents, law enforcement, community leaders and citizens of Atlantic County and empower them to bring about the changes necessary to protect our youth, our families, and our future. Our Mission is to prevent, reduce and/or delay substance use among youth of Atlantic County in a long term and sustainable manner.
Who We Are
There is a growing recognition that all organizations and agencies in communities, concerned citizens, and local, state and federal policy makers have an important role to play in prevention. We believe prevention is a community-wide responsibility and are committed to providing leadership, resources, education and programming for our young people and our community.
What We Do
JTAC implements various interventions in the community to achieve its’ mission and vision:
- Hold community forums on youth substance misuse
- Coordinates the Atlantic County Opioid Task Force
- Social media campaigns for youth and community
- We Check for 21 Conference
- Provide responsible beverage server training to liquor licensees
- Educate community on proper disposal of medications
- Reach students and parents through interactive prevention programs
- Distribute locking medication cabinets for homes
- Provide permanent prescription drop boxes to police departments
- Provide Deterra drug deactivation bags
- Fund Cops in Shops programs
Seven Strategies For Community Change
- Provide Information – through educational presentations, workshops and seminars.
- Enhance Skills – through workshops, seminars, or other activities designed to increase the skills of participants, members, and staff needed to achieve population level outcomes.
- Provide Support – by creating opportunities to participate in activities that reduce risk.
- Enhance or Reduce Access & Barriers – through improving systems and processing to increase the ease, ability, and opportunity to utilize those systems and services.
- Change Consequences Incentives/Disincentives – by increasing or decreasing the probability of a specific behavior that reduces risk or enhance protection by altering the consequences for performing the behavior.
- Change Physical Design – the structure of the environment to reduce risk or enhance protections.
- Modify & Change Policies – such as written procedures, by-laws, proclamations, rules, or laws with written documentation and/or voting procedures.
Measuring Success
We use many tools to evaluate the success of Atlantic County’s Drug Free Communities project, including the following:
- Students behavior surveys conducted by school districts will evaluate youth drug and alcohol use over time.
- Parental surveys, focus groups and assessments will gauge community attitudes.
- Coalition coordinators and members participate in ongoing training to assess prevention needs, build community capacity and plan, implement and evaluate prevention programs.
- A federal project officer assigned to our community oversees our project and conducts periodic evaluations.
Contact
Join Together Atlantic County
626 N. Shore Road
Absecon, NJ 08201
Phone: (609) 272-0101 Ext. 2
Fax: (609) 272-1345
Email: jtacnj@atlprev.org
facebook.com/JTACNJ
www.jtacnj.org