English

10707 Preston Rd.

Dallas, TX 75230

Dear Dallas Chamber of Commerce,

We at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas are one of the largest health insurers in our region. It is our mission to promote the health and wellness of our members and our communities  through accessible, affordable and quality healthcare. As a pillar of the Dallas community, it is also our duty to give back and help the many families who are in need. We already have a community program set in place called Healthy Kids, Healthy Families. This program addresses areas in nutrition, physical activity, disease prevention and management, and supports safe environments (Healthy). We would like to expand upon our already existing program and offer aid to children who have parents that have been incarcerated for drug abuse.

Background and Goals

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice reports that children of offenders have a 70% greater likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal justice system (TDCJ). In Dallas-Fort Worth alone 70,000 children have parents who are incarcerated, so this means DFW potentially has  49,000 future inmates (TDCJ).

Also, according to the statistics report by DEA FD, powder and crack cocaine usage has increased due to its high and stable available market that comes from Mexico. Statistics show that 14% of young people have access and are abusing this substance (SUBSTANCE). Another highly accessible drug is alcohol, the primary drug abused in Dallas with statistics showing that 62% of secondary school students (grades 7 -12) have consumed it, and 29% had consumed alcohol in the previous month (SUBSTANCE).

Substance abuse also negatively affects the health care system. Figure 1 below is provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse breaks down the costs different drugs have on healthcare (Trends). The overall costs due to drug abuse consists of costs related to crime, lost work productivity, and healthcare combined. Health care costs alone account for 24 percent of these overall costs.

Figure 1

As a healthcare insurer these costs are of great concern to us. If we can reduce the rate of substance abuse in Dallas we would also be helping our local healthcare system, which is a goal in our Healthy Kids, Healthy Families initiative.

Through our program Break the Cycle, we want to help youths realize that although their parents  have made poor decisions regarding drug use, they have a choice to not follow that path. There are many programs that help teens who are already in the juvenile detention system due to drug abuse. For example, The Dallas County Juvenile Department  offers many services such as clinical, educational, institutional, and probation services (Dallas). Although our goal is to prevent youths from drug abuse and future incarceration, The Dallas County Juvenile Department services offered a great template for our program. Thier services gave us an idea of what kind of professionals we should employ, counseling services to provide the families, and what kind of background check should be run on our volunteers.

The program we are proposing is important to us because two of our members grew up in families with parents who have a substance problem. They both expressed that a program like this would have made a big difference in their lives, such as keeping their grades up, and helping them evaluate their own self-worth. Having a substance abusing parent is like having a ticking time bomb in a home. One of our members, Kathryn, never knew when her mother would be stopping by to see her and never knew where she was. All she knew was that her mother always looked and acted differently on the rare occasions that she would see her. Broken promises and scary arguments caused depression in Kathryn’s life at such a young age. She never had a chance to experience life in a normal family and had always wondered why her mother did the things that she did and never wanted to come home. We hope our program can break this cycle and prevent these children from repeating their parents mistakes, gain self-worth and help them understand that no matter what pressures they may face drug use is not an option.

Proposed Plan

According to the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence, “Parents' abuse of alcohol and other drugs can lead to a cycle of addiction, which is reflected by high rates of alcoholism and other substance abuse among children of addicts. Substance abuse among youth leads to a domino effect of problems in school, involvement in juvenile justice, teen pregnancy, and mental and emotional turmoil” (Parental). Through our Break The Cycle program we are determined to prevent youths from following existing bad habits in their homes. Our program targets children in middle school who have parent(s) or guardian(s) that have been or are currently incarcerated because of substance abuse. We will give these children an opportunity to see that they can take control of their own lives and decisions when it comes to drugs.

As found by the editors of Children of Substance-Abusing Parents, “Consequently, in a family in which one of the members becomes a substance abuser, profound and significant implications for the rest of the family can be anticipated as familial roles are shifted and generational boundaries are crossed. For example, as a substance-abusing parent becomes unable to fulfill his or her role, other family members, including the children, may begin to fill the existing vacuum and assume the missing parental roles and responsibilities, often at the expense of their own development (Straussner).” The vision of our program is to fill the emptiness that the children may feel inside due to an absent parent. Staff can do this by sharing knowledge about drug use and using encouragement with the group of students that they work with to make them feel like their lives still matter and their only job is to be a kid.

Children of Substance-Abusing Parents also mentions that when a parent is addicted to drugs, “the child is essentially parentless and likely learns to take care of himself or herself. Unfortunately, depending on the child’s age, he or she may become a “parentified child”, who becomes a caretaker of his or her own parents and siblings even at the cost of his or her own development” (Straussner). We wish to become role models for these children and let them know that they are not alone.

Our program will serve 100 students using 12 counselors and 10 volunteers. Flyers will be sent to high school student organizations to request volunteers and offer community service hours that are required for graduation. Background checks will be administered on everyone on the staff team, including volunteers. Our program will take place on Saturdays from 10:00a.m. to 4:00p.m. and will include lunch for everyone. We request that the volunteers and staff come early to set up lunches and activities for the day. To join our program it is up to the parents or current guardians of the children to sign them up. This shows that the parents involved in substance abuse are willing to better their lives of their children and can show better morale of the parents in court.

The flyer in figure 2 will be sent to the students of three chosen middle schools “Thomas C Marsh Middle School, Medrano Middle School and Edward H. Cary Middle School” in the well known drug influenced neighborhood located, near Webb Chapel Rd., Marsh Ln., Royal Ln. and Forest Ln. Flyers will also be sent to Child Protective Services serving the specified Dallas area.

Figure 2

Break The Cycle is completely non-profit it is free to all the students who join. Edward H. Cary Middle School is our chosen destination for the program to take place and have decided to provide transportation using buses to and from the nearest 3 middle schools mentioned above. Students will be split into several groups in a five to one student:counselor ratio. These groups will rotate to different stations throughout the day so each student experiences the most from our program. As the flyer above indicates, the students will then be involved in several activities that build teamwork, self-worth, confidence, responsibility and ethics which are traits they may not be able to learn from their drug abusing parent(s) at home. These activities include: arts and crafts, sports, games,  group counseling, and drug awareness speeches. Students wanting assistance in homework are also encouraged to bring their school work and will be added to a tutoring station. If any additional one-on-one counseling or parent-child counselling is desired by the student or parent, our professional counselors will be available Tuesday through Friday for private appointments. We believe that it is important for these students to know that having a substance abusing parent is not their fault and addiction is not an easy illness to overcome. In addition, we will focus on the risks, consequences, and side effects of using drugs as well as the difficulty to withdraw from current drug using.

The primary goal of Break the Cycle is to lower the Dallas statistics of children following their drug addicted parent’s footsteps and for them to understand that being drug free is the best option. Therefore it will lead to less youths being incarcerated for substance abuse which means saving the futures of many generations. With the program being only on Saturdays during the school year we wish to expand it to the summer time as well, taking place on Wednesdays and Saturdays (below is an outline of the schedule). Our focus is to make a positive influence on these young students before they begin their journey through high school where drugs and influences can become part of everyday life.

2016 Schedule

Below is a brief outline of the schedule is Break The Cycle is approved by July of 2016

· Send flyers out within the first week of school August 22

· Deadline for parents to sign up September 12

· School Year Program Begins            September 17

· School Year Program Ends            June 3

· Send flyers out for summer registration May 22

· Deadline for parents to sign up (summer)            June 5

· Summer Program Begins June 12

· Summer Program Ends August 5

Staffing

To help plan all of our activities and events, we will be bringing on a full time project manager, who will be in charge of running our drug prevention program. This project manager would handle everything from getting in contact with volunteer services to finding volunteers, to getting the program prepared for feeding over 100 kids in the program a nice, healthy Saturday lunch. They would also be in charge of more important things such as getting the background checks on all of the staff, as well as all of our volunteers. We would also bring on two full time and ten part time certified drug counselors who would work directly with these children to ensure that they are on the right path at home, in school, and most importantly, in life. The full time counselors would be available Tuesday thru Friday for any additional counseling that any child would need during the week. Our program would also bring on many volunteers, mainly high school students with the ability to relate to the children, also to help prepare the food during lunch for the 100 children. As well as prepare the many activities for the children to be engaged in. Lastly, we would employ two school bus drivers to run routes for our program on Saturdays to help bring all of these children together, and even bring them all home at the end of the day.

Budget

Our research has shown that the annual budget of running drug prevention program for minors is around $300,000 based on Virginia's existing programs and according to West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities, “Substance Abuse Prevention Program” (Substance). The tables on the following pages show the individual costs of each of the components needed. We also have 10 volunteers. However, they are not considered in the costs. The office space (LoopNet), bus rental cost (Bus Results) and bus driver cost (Salary.com) were found online.

Table 1: The total cost during the school year is $168,414.00 as shown in the table below.

Table 2: The total cost during the summer is $72,778.00 as shown in the table below.

The total cost for the whole year would be $241,192.00.

Conclusion and Authorization

To fund our project Blue Cross Blue Shield will be contributing to 60% of the total costs needed, which would be $146,215.20. We plan on obtaining the other 40% of the costs through other donations, such as fundraisers.

Through Break the Cycle, we expect youth crime rates and future adult crime rates to lower making Dallas an overall better place to live. Our community is being taken over by the manipulation of drugs so this program will also decrease the amount of future addicts in our lovely city, and also putting less strain on local healthcare budgets. These children are the future of Dallas and are the main targets if we want to make change. Our predicted date of the start of the program is July 1st so it allows us enough time to recruit and plan for the middle school children in 2016. Figure 3 below shows where we expect to receive our funding.

Figure 3