History

CADCAT's staff is composed of three Master's level social workers, one post-Master's Education Specialist and a four-term elected Tennessee Sheriff.  Each is experienced in providing prevention services, and doing so to diverse populations. These services encompass school- and community-based prevention; individual and family centered programming to diverse populations, including: children, geriatric, disabled, developmentally disabled, homeless, faith-based, child welfare, and crime prevention, as well as the coalition services, which we currently support.

CADCAT currently manages multiple programs and cost centers funded both publicly and privately.  It was developed through collaborative work with grassroots groups to develop a network of anti-drug coalitions across the state.  It was originally funded by a grant from the Tennessee Department of Health, Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services in 1999, bolstered by in-kind staffing from the Tennessee National Guard.  Starting with three Drug Free Community Support Grant-funded coalitions in 1999, other coalitions have been established and existing Alliances, Weed & Seed sites and Promise Communities have joined the statewide coalition. In 2004 the Office of Criminal Justice Programs began funding training and small projects for the budding coalitions.  In 2005 the first bylaws were written and officers elected.  Within months the organization was chartered by the state of Tennessee and became designated by the IRS as a 501-(c)3. 

CADCAT's mission is to bring together community coalitions, implement proven strategies and policies, and promote a drug-free Tennessee.  

 CADCAT has assisted grassroots groups to establish over 60 anti-drug coalitions, and through the SPF, provided readiness assessment, training and/or technical assistance to 44 of those coalitions to utilize SAMHSA's strategic prevention framework to provide evidence-based prevention programs, practices and strategies.  Through funding from the DADAS for the Tennessee SPF-SIG, CADCAT worked in partnership with DADAS, the SE CAPT and PIRE to provide support services to the Epidemiology Workgroup and the Advisory Council.  It provided initial contact information to all 95 of Tennessee's counties for the statewide needs and capacity assessments, and helped to write the state plan.  The principal function of this grant was to assist coalitions' effective practice of the Strategic Prevention Framework and participation in the grant.  Toward that end, in early years it helped recruit and establish coalitions indicated by the statewide needs assessment, assisting these coalitions to recruit participation of their school systems.  It provided training, technical assistance and facilitation for SPF-SIG events and workshops.  CADCAT helped build state capacity through its participation on the advisory boards of existing workgroups, such as the Tennessee Adolescent Coordination of Treatment (T-ACT), the Tennessee Re-Entry Collaborative (TREC) and Coordinated School Health.  It developed, through leveraged funding, other projects.  One, through the Governor's Highway Safety Office, to assist growth of campus/community coalitions; one through the Office of Criminal Justice Programs to provide training and credentialing for crime prevention; and one through the Tennessee Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (TADEC) to develop and implement protocols at the local level for first responders.

Through Byrne funding from the Department of Justice, CADCAT provided grassroots volunteers training opportunities to the CADCA Leadership Forum and the California Alcohol Policy Panel's Forum #14.  At four years' Leadership Forums 88 people from 32 counties received a minimum of two days of training in one of 7 subject areas.  CADCAT also managed a competitive grant process through this Byrne funding, providing coalitions an experiential learning opportunity to plan a strategy and request funding through a written, competitive application process to implement, track and evaluate an evidence-supported prevention initiative.  These coalitions completed a grant planning and application process and implemented, and reported on the implementation, for the strategies they proposed in their application.  CADCAT's Advocacy Institute, developed in partnership with Join Together at Boston School of Public Health, was piloted in Memphis, Nashville, and Bristol in the Spring 2008.  An adaptation of this training was provided in workshop format in the Fall 2008 at the Prevention Congress.

Prevention Services and/or Distance Learning Services have been provided by all of the professional staff at CADCAT.  Staff members have extensive experience providing services at the individual, family, school/work, and community levels.  In addition to universal interventions, staff members have experience with the selective and indicated populations targeted by DADAS for block grant funding, including: selected population groups, which include high school dropouts; foster care children; juvenile offenders; and children of substance abusing parents; as well as the indicated population groups, such as those with early initiation of alcohol and drug use and associated problems (age 13 years and under); adolescents who are binge drinking and have associated problems; young adults who are binge drinking and have associated problems (ages 18 to 24); adolescents with high rates/excessive use of alcohol and drugs (ages 15 to 18 years); or inhalant use (ages 10 to 16) and with associated problems;  adolescents with prescription drug abuse (ages 15 to 18 and associated problems and who have a mental health diagnosis.  CADCAT's staff members have served on numerous boards and advisory boards and have both established and maintained effective working relationships with public and private organizations and funders.