What Next? Sustaining a Successful Small-Scale Alcohol Consumption Harm Minimization Project

Abstract

Engaging communities in alcohol consumption–related action projects requires the application of a range of flexible and responsive evidence-based methods. These include: establishing collaborative relationships, implementing strategies to improve age verification practices, encouraging organizational change, and raising awareness of local alcohol issues. The focus of this article is the sustainability of an alcohol harm minimization project for young people in Hawera (a small New Zealand town) that has produced some encouraging results. The Hawera Alcohol and Young People project began in 2000 along with external formative and impact evaluation components. This article will draw on the evaluation findings to date and the experience of community action projects in New Zealand to explore what makes a sustainable community action project and to examine the extent to which this has been achieved by the Hawera Alcohol and Young People project. The limitations of the study are noted.

Keywords:

• community action
• sustainability
• project planning
• project development
• institutionalization
• formative evaluation
• partnership

Notes

Notes

1. Hawera is a small New Zealand town, located in a rural district, dominated by the dairy farming industry. It has a population of around 8,460, with approximately 2,300 people aged 18 years and under.

2. This project originally arose out of work undertaken by the Alcohol & Public Health Research Unit (APHRU) at the University of Auckland. The researchers involved now work for the Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE) and Te Ropu Whariki at Massey University.

3. In 1989, wine became available for sale in supermarkets, controls on the density of alcohol outlets were removed, and some licensing responsibilities were devolved to local government. In 1992, alcohol brand advertising was allowed in the broadcast media and RTD's were introduced in 1995. In 1999, supermarkets were permitted to sell beer (Conway and Casswell, 2003).

4. A baseline age verification purchase survey was undertaken in March 2001. For details of the methodology used, see Huckle and Greenaway et al. (2007) in this issue.

5. Sustainable development has been defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (Brundtlund, 1987, cited in Giddings, Hopwood, and O'Brien, 2002), signaling the need to embrace the relationship between socioeconomic and environmental issues.

6. The ThinkSmart accreditation program is a collaborative initiative launched in February 2004 that will focus on improving host responsibility practices at sports clubs across the Taranaki region. It developed out of an ALAC funded project called drinkSAFE4youth.

7. Another SHORE and Whariki research project, The Community Project Indicators Framework (CPIF; Duignan et al., 2003) developed and piloted a set of indicators used in project planning and reporting. This project has continued to support the development of SHORE and Whariki community action projects.

8. MoUs are signed documents that formalize agreements between project or agency collaborators and partnerships move to earlier mention.

9. This project receives funding through Alcohol Liquor Advisory Council's (ALAC) Youth Access to Alcohol program.