"Take a Stand Against Impaired Driving" continues to be a great theme for 3D Prevention Month. This year's theme has been expanded to reflect the growing success of the Safe Communities program:
"Safe Communities Take a Stand Against Impaired Driving."
Throughout the planner you will be presented with ideas, successful programs, and information on how members of each of the Safe Communities components — medical/health care providers, law enforcement, educators, employers/business, community and civic groups, prosecutors and judges, government and legislators, and the military — are Taking a Stand Against Impaired Driving. We encourage you to build on the success of other programs to make your community a safer community, not just during the month of December, but all year long.
Recruit Partners Continuing to expand partnerships within your community is a key ingredient to combating the impaired driving problem. Having a diverse group of individuals and organizations from each of the components that make up Safe Communities and that represents a cross-section of your community will bring varying ideas and resources to make your 3D Prevention Month a successful one. Look for influential people in the community who can provide financial support through personnel and/or in-kind services to develop campaign materials and activities, and who can help plan and execute the campaign by allocating people to distribute information, work with the media, and direct events.
Focus Your Campaign After you decide who your target audience is, based on your community's impaired driving problem profile, you should decide which Safe Communities component(s) you want to focus your campaign and impaired driving messages around. For example, if young adults age 21 to 34 are your community's largest and greatest impaired driving challenge, you could focus your campaign events on what law enforcement is doing to enforce impaired driving laws and what prevention programs are being conducted to prevent impaired drivers from getting behind the wheel. You could also work with the employer/business component of Safe Communities by developing campaign activities that focus on what employers and businesses are doing to prevent impaired driving.
Set Goals Set realistic goals based on the circumstances in your community. One goal could be to have zero alcohol-related deaths in the month of December. Another could be to have 75 percent of employers throughout your community conduct impaired driving programs and sponsor non-alcoholic parties in the workplace. Once you establish your target audience, decide what community components you will focus your campaign around, and set goals for your campaign, you are ready to begin planning activities and events.
Plan Your Campaign Organization is the key to planning. Use the following planning worksheet to organize your 3D prevention events and activities or to develop your own. Planning worksheets will not only provide a way of keeping track of who, what, when, where, why, and how, but they will also become a record that you can use to evaluate the success of your events and to keep track of any challenges you come across as you implement your activities. You also will have a resource for future events. Be sure to post all your events on the National 3D Prevention Month Coalition's web site (http://www.3dmonth.org) and submit the "1997 Brag Sheet and Feedback Form" to the Coalition for a chance at a 3D Prevention community grant.
