The Council has recently launched a multi-faceted prevention of problem gambling state-wide initiative. For the first time in our history, funding has been allocated to incorporate prevention strategies into our mission, and initiate and support efforts to prevent problem gambling.
The Council will help to prevent problem gambling by raising awareness of the disorder, and then by building the capacity of the existing prevention infrastructure, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations and educational institutions so that the groups are able to join the prevention effort.
The Council is working with preventionists and educators across the Commonwealth to help them to understand problem gambling, and to support their efforts to prevent problem gambling, by providing training, resources and technical assistance.
Many of the Council Prevention Department’s efforts will focus on youth, college students, older adults, the corrections population, and cultural and linguistic underserved populations, including the Latino/Latina population and the African-American population. The Council will utilize the following prevention strategies to reach out to these groups:
- Information Dissemination -- Create materials for the purpose of informing and raising awareness about problem gambling; such as posters, brochures and public service announcements.
- Prevention Education -- Teach prevention prevention professionals, educators and others so that they are able to add the prevention of problem gambling to their toolboxes.
- Supporting Alternative Activities -- Challenge community event organizers to choose social activities and fundraisers that do not promote problematic or illegal gambling.
- Supporting Community-Based Processes -- Utilize multi-agency activities & inter-agency coordination to incorporate problem gambling prevention in the development of healthy communities.
- Environmental Approaches -- Support and encourage community-wide approaches such as gambling policy development in schools and universities, as well as compliance with laws regarding legalized gambling.
- Problem Identification and Referral -- Creating protocols and procedures that assist individuals involved in problematic gambling to seek appropriate help.
By identifying populations that could benefit from the aforementioned problem gambling prevention strategies, and collaborating with these groups by offering support, and developing materials, the Council plans to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors related to problematic gambling in the Commonwealth. Please read more about this in our Prevention Plan (coming soon)! In addition, the Council has compiled problem gambling prevention materials from across the country, and developed a resource library of materials.
