Linda L King, MS, Jennifer R Wheeler, MPH, Jennifer Wierwille Norton, MPP, and John F Bunker, ScD, MHS. New Futures, 29 New Hampshire Ave., Suite 1, Portsmouth, NH 03801, 603-431-1770, lking@new-futures.org

New Futures New Futures is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization working to reduce underage alcohol problems and increase access to treatment in New Hampshire. New Futures’ Community Leadership Initiative (CLI) is a grassroots, statewide network of “Leadership Partners” developed to support environmental change. CLI identifies, engages and trains individual community members concerned about reducing underage alcohol problems and increasing access to treatment in New Hampshire. Leadership Partners have played a key role in several significant policy victories in the state in the past five years, including enforcement and compliance, increased financing, and community-coalition building. While CLI represents a cross section of committed citizens who are speaking out and taking action - it evolved as a model that engages adults as advocates. The network represented the diversity of community members, but did not include youth. The involvement of youth was determined to be critical for the continuing success of the CLI model. Collaboration with a statewide youth development and prevention organization, the NH Teen Institute, resulted in a youth-friendly model while maintaining the information transfer and skill development components of the adult version. A key component is the ability to evaluate the success of this initiative. Model development, lessons learned, and evaluation results will be shared.

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