EUDL Network Announcement about Sunset of UDETC TTA Services and Resources

 

Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

September 2, 2015

Dear EUDL Friends and Partners,

 

Since 1999, through the Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) Program’s Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center (UDETC), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has supported and enhanced efforts by states and local jurisdictions to prohibit the sale, purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages by youth under 21 years of age.

 

On behalf of the OJJDP and UDETC, we thank you for your dedication and contributions to the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) Program. It has been our pleasure and honor to provide training and technical assistance (TTA) services to states, territories, and local jurisdictions across the nation for the past 16 years. Together, along with OJJDP, law enforcement, prevention specialists, judicial and probation services, community partners, researchers, and federal partners, we have worked with many of you to ensure that the field has had access to useful resources, valuable TTA, and relevant research findings to support success and prevent underage drinking. Through a full range of TTA services since 1999 to the 50 states, DC, and five U.S. territories, the UDETC efforts and partnerships have influenced underage drinking enforcement and deterrence by:[i]

 

• Providing TTA for application of proven approaches resulting in over 160 Success Stories;

 

• Providing significant TTA to support discretionary programs administered since 1999 to 28 states and 1 U.S. territory that addressed underage drinking issues through use of evidence-based environmental strategies in special focus populations including the following:

 

o   Early Discretionary Programs (1999 grants)

o   Community Trials Initiative (2003 grants)

o   Rural Communities Initiative (2004 and 2005 grants)

o   Military Discretionary Initiatives (2006, 2009, and 2012 grants)

o   University/College Initiative (2008 grants)

o   State Assessment, Strategic Planning, and Implementation Initiative (2010 grants)

• Developing a Leadership Institute with teams from nine states—Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin—that improved underage drinking prevention outcomes;

 

• Changing how community leaders and citizens think about underage drinking risks as evidenced by close to 42 million website hits;

 

• Increasing attention to economic and societal costs of underage drinking, including state-by-state cost analysis;

 

• Hosting 12 National Leadership Conferences and 1 EUDL Symposium, solely on underage drinking, with a maximum of 2,200 diverse attendees in 2008 and 131 attendees at the EUDL Symposium held in 2012 for a smaller, targeted audience;

 

• Developing more than 390 publications, Success Stories, distance learning courses, toolkits, judicial newsletters, and Resource Alerts to the field;

 

• Training more than 99,832 individuals and using technology, such as distance learning, interactive online trainings, and webinars to support hard-to-reach areas;

 

• Reaching and engaging – youth through national leadership conferences, webinars, trainings, and the EUDL youth listserv; Youth have been both participants and TTA providers through the UDETC

 

• Developing seven distance learning courses completed by more than 3,058 participants in the United States and abroad (Australia and China) from December 2010 to July 31, 2015;

 

• Developing eight podcasts downloaded by more than 14,730 users in the United States and abroad (Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, China, El Salvador, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain, Sri- Lanka, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom) from 2013 to July 31, 2015;

 

•        Enhancing mission readiness by addressing underage drinking in military communities; and

 

• Reporting from TTA recipients of increased knowledge, improvements in operations, and increased likelihood of implementing evidence-based programs and/or practices as a result of TTA.

 

With the EUDL program ending, the UDETC’s Web site (http://www.udetc.org/index.asp) will no longer be available to the public after close of business on October 16, 2015. With the closeout of the EUDL TTA services underway, we are working with OJJDP and its National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) to transfer relevant UDETC resources to NTTAC’s Online University (https://www.nttac.org/). In addition, select resources such as publications, Success Stories, and other documents will be made available from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation’s website (http://www.pire.org). UDETC Staff will be available to respond to TTA requests through September 30, 2015 and will wrap up administrative functions on October 30, 2015. If you have any questions or need further assistance after the close out of the UDETC TTA grant, please contact Sharie Cantelon (OJJDP) at sharie.cantelon@usdoj.gov or 202-616-3658.

 

We wish you all the best in building collaborative relationships and sustaining EUDL work. Thank you for your contributions to making the EUDL Program a success and we wish you the best in your future efforts.

 

Sincerely,

 

Mary V. Gordon,

Director, Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center

Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation