Communities for Alcohol- and Drug-Free Youth

Every year thousands of New Hampshire youth make a choice—a choice to use or not use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. CADY’s mission is to help our local youth make healthy and safe choices by working with schools, parents, youth, and communities to prevent and reduce youth alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use and to promote healthy environments and promising futures.

Since 1999, our non-profit organization, has served 18 rural towns in Central New Hampshire in various capacities. Our focus is comprehensive, outcome-based substance abuse prevention via extensive collaborations, implementation of environmental prevention strategies, and development of award-winning, youth empowerment programming. From 2003 through 2013 CADY was a 10-year Drug Free Communities grantee and we currently serve as the Central NH Substance Misuse Prevention Provider and Substance Use Disorders Continuum of Care Facilitator for the Central NH Public Health Network and the NH Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services. Please see the CADY Fact Sheet. Click here for more information.

Our coalition is comprised of three school districts, and community partners from 12 core sectors including law enforcement, guidance counselors, teachers, parents, the district court, recreation groups, youth and community centers, health and medical clinics, businesses, higher education, the arts, the media, local churches, and many other individuals.

Since 2007, CADY has also operated the sole Juvenile Court Diversion Program, a NH Accredited program, for 18 towns in the Plymouth Family Court region. The Restorative Justice process has given a second chance to over 170 youth to take responsibility for their actions, make restitution to victims, reconnect with community and turn their lives around.

In order to build organizational sustainability in 2014, CADY developed and rolled out a one-of-a-kind, 12-month strategic media campaign system in 2014 with broad appeal among the substance abuse prevention community around the country. Under the umbrella of CADY’s Social Marketing Service, we launched the “Prevention Accelerator Media Campaign System” as a strategic, time-saving, prevention tool designed to meet the substance abuse community’s need for accurate and research-based information. The overarching goal of the Prevention Accelerator system is to raise public awareness of the risks and harms of youth substance misuse and connect the dots to solutions.

Substance abuse is a serious health and safety risk for our children and communities. We believe prevention is one of the most responsible, humane, and cost effective practices to address the problem. Prevention is simply protecting what we value most: our children, and our community, from the harmful effects of illegal drugs and crime.

CADY is located at 94 Highland Street in Plymouth, New Hampshire. We work with three regions, Pemi-Baker, Newfound, and Lincoln-Woodstock in the communities of Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Bristol, Campton, Ellsworth, Groton, Hebron, Holderness, Lincoln, Livermore, Plymouth, Rumney, Thornton, Warren, Waterville Valley, Wentworth and Woodstock.