Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (GOSAP) - Who We Are
The Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention awards and administers federal grant funds apportioned to Virginia under the State Incentive Grant Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration and the Governor's set-aside of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funds allocated to Virginia by the U.S. Department of Education, under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Under the former program, GOSAP awarded $9 million to 20 Virginia communities for the implementation of proven, evidence-based youth substance abuse prevention programs. Under the latter program, GOSAP annually makes approximately $1.3 million available for local program grants. Learn more about these programs and others which GOSAP supports.
Agency Mission
The mission of the Governor’s Office for Substance Abuse Prevention is to support positive youth development by providing strategic statewide leadership, fostering collaboration and the sharing of resources at all levels, and providing tools and training to practice evidence-based prevention so that Virginia’s youth will develop into productive citizens free from substance abuse, violence, delinquency, school drop-out, criminal gang participation, and related risky behaviors.
Agency Values
- Positive youth development focus — Always strive to improve and support the best interests of Virginia’s youth and families.
- Collaboration — Work together to share resources and focus on common ideals and desired outcomes.
- Leadership — Recruit and convene partners to facilitate best practices and develop prudent policies.
- Integrity — Follow all rules, guidelines, and requirements.
- Fairness — Treat all applicants, partners, and employees equally.
- Creativity — Value innovation in a supportive, energetic environment that encourages the use of best practices.
- Efficiency — Coordinate with others to share resources, reduce duplication and foster synergy.
- Effectiveness — Produce tangible products and accountable results.
- Respect — Respect the input and work of all people involved in positive youth development activities.
- Customer service — Exceed a customer’s reasonable expectation for a timely, courteous and accurate response.
- Loyalty — Remain committed to GOSAP’s mission, values and goals, while supporting the team/effort to achieve them.
Agency Vision
We envision the Governor’s Office for Substance Abuse Prevention as a nationally-recognized leader in evidence-based prevention practice because it:
- leads and models strong collaboration among state and local agencies, organizations, coalitions, and faith communities that address prevention;
- prioritizes, coordinates, and leverages Virginia’s prevention resources to improve efficiency;
- improves the effectiveness of Virginia’s prevention efforts by providing practical tools for and training in evidence-based prevention practice;
- develops and recognizes prevention professionals and volunteers; and
- sustains and enhances evidence-based prevention practice including: risk-based, data-driven needs assessments, measurable goals and objectives, use of evidence-based programs, and evaluation for accountability and improvement to advance positive development of Virginia’s youth.
Accomplishments & Initiatives
There is no formal ranking system or yardstick by which to measure Virginia’s prevention efforts. Still, state prevention managers have noted a rejuvenation of interest and collaborative activity over the last few years. Federal technical assistance staff who are familiar with Virginia’s prevention efforts, as well as those of other states, have described GOSAP’s accomplishments as “exemplary” and “cutting edge.” Even before the release of the Community Profile Database, GOSAP staff received calls from other states interested in viewing the system for possible adaptation to their states. GOSAP staff has been selected to showcase the Community Profile Database at numerous state and national conferences. Though not objective rankings, these qualitative indicators suggest that GOSAP’s efforts are respected, and continue to gain national attention.
Positive youth development impacts children, families, schools, communities, and Virginia’s social and economic environment. Consequently, GOSAP has a variety of customers who require different products and services. Since 2002, GOSAP has developed products and services across four major areas: leadership, funding, tools and training.
Strategic Statewide Leadership:
GOSAP has developed a leadership infrastructure to share resources and improve effectiveness, efficiency and accountability across Virginia’s 13 state agencies that have responsibilities to the positive development of Virginia’s youth.
- GOSAP created and directs the GOSAP Collaborative, representing Virginia’s 13 agencies with prevention responsibilities, to: improve communication, foster agreement, facilitate cooperation and partnerships, share resources, increase consistency, simplify processes, and increase accountability.
- The heads of all 13 Collaborative member agencies signed a Memorandum of Agreement supporting continued collaboration and sound prevention practice.
- GOSAP created and directs the implementation of Virginia’s statewide prevention plan, Gaining Traction: A Substance Abuse Prevention Plan for Virginia’s Youth, in partnership with the GOSAP Collaborative, to set the course for Virginia’s current and future prevention practices. Nearly 5,000 copies have been distributed. Touching Down at Mid-Way: A Mid-Term Progress Report was released in late 2005 to apprise readers of progress made to date in implementing the first report’s recommendations.
- Our Common Language , a pocket guide to prevention, unifies Virginia’s prevention community by explaining the commonality in definitions, planning, and evaluation models used in Virginia’s prevention agencies. Nearly 4,500 copies have been distributed.
Initiatives & Activities Underway:
- GOSAP will facilitate at least four meetings of the GOSAP Collaborative, representing Virginia’s 13 agencies with prevention responsibilities, annually to: improve communication, foster agreement, facilitate cooperation and partnerships, share resources, increase consistency, simplify processes, and increase accountability.
- GOSAP will lead the development and implementation of management standards to reduce local duplication of effort, simplify local application procedures, and improve local prevention practice by specifying planning team composition, needs assessment components (some of which can be generated as a report in the Community Profile Database) and developing a common application form/proposal for multiple funding streams. This will allow communities to do one comprehensive community plan that is accepted by all state agencies.
- GOSAP will lead the development and implementation of a plan to encourage on-going professional development, certification for, and recognition of persons practicing evidence-based prevention. It is vital that Virginia build and maintain a statewide workforce of well-trained prevention practitioners to continue evidence-based prevention practices.
Statewide Grants Administration:
GOSAP has obtained and provided resources to support community-based prevention efforts that promote positive youth development.
- GOSAP has served as federal liaison to substance abuse prevention efforts requiring gubernatorial-level oversight or cooperation, allowing Virginia to qualify for and obtain federal prevention funding. Staff has represented Virginia at national public safety, prevention, and substance abuse meetings, conferences, and events. GOSAP has served as a contact point to obtain federal technical assistance for prevention efforts.
- GOSAP has leveraged funding streams to maximize results from limited prevention funding. It has cultivated relationships with public and private entities to sponsor or co-sponsor efforts.
- GOSAP has followed state and federal funding requirements to set priority funding areas, develop requests for proposals, screen proposals, select grantees, approve the release of funding, monitor grants, and provide technical assistance to grantees.
- GOSAP has provided funding annually for local implementation of proven, evidence-based programs to reduce substance abuse and violence in Virginia’s communities through the Governor's designated portion of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) funding allocated to Virginia by the U.S. Department of Education, under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
- GOSAP provided $9 million to 20 Virginia communities over a four-year cycle for the implementation of proven, evidence-based youth substance abuse prevention programs through a State Incentive Grant (SIG), Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Substance Abuse and Health Services Administration.
Initiatives & Activities Underway:
- GOSAP continues to administer the Governor's designated portion of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) funding for evidence-based programs to reduce substance abuse and violence in Virginia ’s communities.
- GOSAP is seeking the continuation of federal funding sources to administer and support proven, evidence-based programs to improve positive youth development.
Tools to Practice Evidence-Based Prevention:
GOSAP has created tools to promote and assist state, local and private service providers in practicing evidence-based prevention strategies that have been proven to reduce and prevent risky adolescent behavior.
- Already recognized with a national “Best of the Web” award for innovation, GOSAP’s Community Profile Database is Virginia’s one-stop, web-based, interactive tool to support evidence-based prevention practice. By providing easy access to data that impacts the development of Virginia’s children and the well-being of Virginia’s communities on one user-friendly web site, it allows:
- Virginians to set benchmarks and monitor progress toward achieving outcomes;
- citizens to see what is happening in their communities and to become involved;
- school children, college, and graduate students to find facts and analyze real data for projects and papers;
- professional researchers to access the data they need for statistical analysis;
- public and private organizations to access uniform data to develop grant applications;
- state agencies to compare data and to target resources to high-need areas and issues;
- local government workers to find consistent data to assess their needs and plan local programs to address them; and
- planners to link to evidence-based, best-practice guidance on program and service strategies.
- The Community Profile Database currently allows users to:
- Select data and display it in basic reports, graphs and maps by age group, race group, gender, city or county, zip code (where data are available at these levels).
- Export data to a .pdf file to insert directly into a document, as an Excel file to manipulate further, or as a .csv file to import into statistical software for additional analysis.
- Read or print data descriptions for each indicator that include: definitions, sources, calculations, and links to related information.
- Link to information on evidence-based programs to address community issues shown by the data, including: searchable databases for evidence-based programs, key research, and sources on best practices.
- Learn about performance measures, outcomes, and evaluating programs and services.
- Compare data with similar national data.
- See what statewide surveys say about Virginia’s youth.
Initiatives & Activities Underway:
- The Community Profile Database is expanding to include:
- information on evidence-based programs operating in Virginia: localities served, problem behaviors addressed, demographic groups targeted, risk or protective factors addressed, evidence-based program name, funding source, and contact information (in collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General);
- pre-formatted reports—to summarize data related to a specific issue;
- listing reports—to allow users to select multiple indicators to include;
- ranking reports—to compare localities on the same indicator; and
- an option to choose indicators by risk and protective factor or subject area (indicator class). (See Appendix F.)
Training to practice evidence-based prevention:
GOSAP has provided training to build Virginia’s state and local capacity to reduce and prevent adolescent risky behavior.
- GOSAP transformed its agency web site to be a clearinghouse for information on prevention in Virginia. It now offers:
- a calendar of prevention-related training and events with links to sponsoring agency web sites for further information or registration;
- information on GOSAP, its products and services;
- downloadable copies of Virginia’s statewide prevention plan, prevention pocket guide and other publications;
- links to current funding opportunities administered by Collaborative agencies, as well as funding research resources for other funding streams;
- a presentation on using social indicator data and a link to the Community Profile Database;
- links to Collaborative member web sites for information on each agency’s specific role in Virginia’s prevention efforts; and
- announcements on prevention-related “hot topics” and issues. (See Appendix G.)
- GOSAP staff has presented prevention-related workshops and training at national, state and local meetings and conferences to promote the use of risk-based planning and evidence-based programming.
- GOSAP has presented statewide training events, such as the Governor’s Annual Virginia Prevention Conferences (growing to more than 500 participants), or collaborates with others (such as the Community Builders Network) to present them. These trainings provide prevention practitioners with opportunities to learn prevention research from national, state, and local experts.
- GOSAP has developed statewide campaigns, such as Prevention Comes First, and collaborates with others to support them. These materials provide children, parents, educators, and others with practical information for positive youth development. In 2007, the Parent Guide to Personal Safety for Youth was published to educate parents on some of the safety threats our children face and assist parents in communicating with their children about personal safety.
- GOSAP has sponsored the expansion of the Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program (YADAPP), to promote positive youth development.
- GOSAP has conducted implementation workshops for potential grantees and grantee training in grant writing, grants administration, and evaluation to improve the ability of potential grantees and grantees to develop grant proposals and manage grants effectively.
Initiatives & Activities Underway:
- GOSAP maintains and regularly updates its prevention clearinghouse web site.
- GOSAP staff continues to present at national, state, and local meetings and conferences to promote the use of risk-based planning and evidence-based programming.
- GOSAP will provide or sponsor prevention leadership experiences for youth, such as the expansion of the Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Program (YADAPP), to promote positive youth development.
Authorization: § 2.2-118, Code of Virginia
Governor to administer substance abuse prevention program. It shall be the responsibility of the Governor to administer the substance abuse prevention program within the Commonwealth and to authorize, direct, and coordinate activities of agencies of the Commonwealth in such program. The Governor is hereby empowered to establish an office of substance abuse prevention within the office of the Governor to assist in the coordination of the substance abuse prevention activities of the Commonwealth, review substance abuse prevention program expenditures by agencies of the Commonwealth, and determine the direction and appropriateness of such expenditures. The Governor shall cooperate with federal, state and local agencies, private and public agencies, interested organizations, and individuals in order to prevent substance abuse within the Commonwealth. The Governor shall report annually by December 1 of each year to the General Assembly on the activities of the office.