Cochise County in Arizona: A Community in Crisis
Cochise, in southern Arizona, has been characterized as having a high intensity in drug trafficking and drug use. Cochise's location near the Mexican border makes it particularly vulnerable to drug trafficking and use among its youth. Furthermore, many houses in the community are dismal owing to a lack of employment and better living conditions; as a result, many young people turn to smuggling and consuming to escape their misery. The county is also dealing with a high rate of school dropout owing to violence and sadness caused by drug usage. Cochise County in Arizona has a collection of problems that continue to traumatize members of its community. As such, there is a necessity to formulate an inquiry to uncover the causes of these problems (Notaro, 2012). One of the threats that increasingly worry the Cochise community is the upsurge of drug use among the youths, which is perceived to originate from the drug smuggling along the US border.
The Problem of Drug Use Among Cochise Youth
Further, 31% of Cochise youth between 15-38 years are involved in drug and substance use thereby demanding efforts towards preventing and controlling measures that would fully solve the issue. In this light, finding the suitable solution has become the main concern for the community. As such, this paper has determinations to propose for implementation of a study that will explore drug use in Arizona, particularly Cochise, and therefore find a permanent solution to the problem.
Selected Education Needs
One education need selected would be using teaching programs and group discussions. Thus, after teaching for a maximum of 30 minutes, the teacher will need to gather small group discussions and provide them with discussion posts. The researchers and the selected personnel will assist in guiding their conversation (Sloboda & Bukoski, 2003). Finally, the group leaders will be required to present and share what they have learnt with the entire group. The group with then hold a discussion launch that will look into every post discussed by the groups and initiate a discussion about harmful effects of drug use. In this section, the sampled population will be allowed to share their grievances and stories and ask questions related to the topic. There will also be a reaction discussion whereby the sampled population and the research personnel will be allowed to react to the information given.
This teaching method is significant as it allows the participants to acquire important information from one another (Sloboda & Bukoski, 2003). Discussion forum boosts the self-esteem of the drug users as they fell more comfortable sharing their views and their stories. Reaction discussions will assist the researchers to explore more in the root cause of the drug use problem and hence offer appropriate solution. Also teaching the youth on captivating topics about drugs will heighten the negative effects of the drugs.
Description of the Proposed Teaching Project
The proposed teaching project will engage old teenage youth and both young and adult youth from selected high schools and from the community. The team is anticipating more than 200 affected youth, 4 professionals from the community (preferably 2 doctors, a teacher and a counselor) and 6 researchers. One researcher will be teaching in collaboration with community professors, while the rest will assist in collecting the necessary data needed for evaluation. Selecting these particular groups will be very effective as the sessions will allow people to share their views and grievances about the drug abuse issue (Notaro, 2012). The approach will encourage the examination and explanation of complex side of drug and substance use among the users.
The session will entail teaching about the adverse effects of drug use, and also provide examples by inviting victims and other people to share their stories on the harmful effects of the drugs. Additionally, the organizers will use tools such open-ended interviews to teach and gather sufficient data. For instance, questions such as (1) when did you start using drugs? (2) How has drugs affected your life negatively? Such questions will be useful in comparing different circumstances from victims, which can be very substantial in discouraging youths to drop their habits.
The team has decided to use the social hall located at the town center to the teaching program. This is because many youth use the hall for social activities and thus it would attract a large crowd thereof. Additionally, the team will publish bulletins which will be delivered on house-to house basis to bring awareness about the program. Another essential tool will be offering free food and entertainment in the hall to entice more youth. Apart from using victims to tell their stories and teach the crowd, the team will use secondary teaching methods such as journals and books to enhance the description of the subject in rich details. The doctors and the teacher will use psychological tools to measure the harmful effect caused by drugs. The teaching will take 2 weeks to enable collection of the appropriate data from the sampled population (Meurer,et al, 2007). Therefore to assess the correct data, the team will be needed to sort the collected data in a period of one week to effectively categorize the most crucial information. They will then store it in flash disks and emails for reference.
Anticipated Barriers
The study will face a number of challenges that require consideration before carry out a successful research and teaching. One problem entails lack of interviewing and teaching all the chosen subjects due to issues such as absenteeism and lack of cooperation. These issues will obstruct the teaching and effectiveness of the study (Meurer,et al, 2007). Some selected participants will become violent with the thought that the Drug Control team is interested in arresting drug users. Additionally, the study concentrates more on the youth in the community, leaving out other victims in the community, since drug abuse it also common among other community members such as parents as well. As such, the study will only benefit the youth leaving other members to deal with the long term effect of drug use.
References
Meurer, W. J., Frederiksen, S. M., Majersik, J. J., Zhang, L., Sandretto, A., & Scott, P. A. (2007). Qualitative data collection and analysis methods: the INSTINCT trial. Academic Emergency Medicine, 14(11), 1064-1071.
Notaro, S. R. (2012). Health disparities among under-served populations: Implications for research, policy, and praxis. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Sloboda, Z., & Bukoski, W. J. (2003). Handbook of drug abuse prevention: Theory, science, and practice. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Pub.
