NCJ Number
197005
Date Published
2002
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Panelists from the workshop on Building Asian American and Pacific Islander Community-Based Service Capacity held at the 2002 National Asian Pacific American Family Against Substance Abuse (APAFASA) Conference in Washington, DC discuss how their specific State and local programs targeting Asian-Pacific Islanders build and increase capacity services through coalition building.
Abstract
In March 2002, the National Asian Pacific American Family Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA) Conference was held in Washington, DC. The ninth workshop of the conference entitled, Building Asian American and Pacific Islander Community-Based Service Capacity focused on how coalition building can assist in increasing service availability to an increasing Asian-Pacific Islander population in the United States. Four panelists representing Asian-Pacific Islander(API) support organizations and programs from across the United States discussed the services offered to APIs, such as mental health, health and disease prevention, alcohol and drug programs, youth advocate services, senior programs and geriatric services, employment, and housing. In addition, service/program limitations were discussed due to the lack of finances, personnel resources, knowledge base, and fiscal facilities or capacities. The panelists were representatives from the Union of Pan Asian Communities (UPAC) program in San Diego, California, the Asian American Study Center of UCLA, Los Angeles, California, Asian-Pacific American Consortium on Substance Abuse, Portland, Oregon, and the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Boston, Massachusetts. Coalition building is seen as supporting capacity building through collaborative partnerships for the purpose of pooling resources, joint grant writing, and building a healthy community. The results from coalition building consist of a shared vision, finding and sharing expertise, gaining resources, shared information, the ability to identify gaps and needs, joint projects becoming the outcome, and increased investments.