With a new sponsor for its grant, new leadership and new plans for how it will spend over $100,000 a year, a group of local volunteers say they are ready to get back to trying to reduce youth drug and alcohol use on Vashon.

The Vashon Alliance to Reduce Substance Abuse (VARSA) in recent years has been mired in conflict with Vashon Youth &  Family Services (VYFS), mostly over how the groups worked together to spend two large grants aimed at addressing Vashon’s higher than average rates of teen substance abuse.

Now that the two groups have formally parted ways and VARSA has just one grant, members say they’re as hopeful as ever that they can make progress on Vashon — that is, if they can recruit a large number of volunteers to help.

“The answer comes down to can we get the bodies in there to help us,” said Chuck VanNorman, VARSA’s new co-chair.

Both VanNorman and Lisa Bruce, who was hired last week as VARSA’s paid coordinator, say they are now working to recruit volunteers. However, they worry VARSA’s troubled history may prevent some from getting involved with what they feel is still an important mission.

o see if we can get our act together,” Bruce said.

“No one wants to go down with the ship,” VanNorman added.

Still, with a plan that continues many of VARSA’s previous programs, members say they feel better poised to carry out prevention strategies on the island. After working for several months with King County, which administers their funding, VARSA has emerged with what members call a more natural fiscal sponsor for its grant, the Vashon School District, a better understanding of the coalition’s roles and responsibilities and clear plans and bylaws that they believe will help them focus on their work rather than wading through conflict.

“Being sidetracked like that was a necessary but very painful process,” said Meri Michael Collins. Collins, a longtime VARSA volunteer, was previously the group’s co-chair and now serves on a committee formed to help implement the new plans.

“We’re back to boots on the ground,” she said.

As VARSA tries to emerge in a better position, VYFS, meanwhile, is left missing a large chunk of funding that was once used at the PlaySpace. In the transition, VARSA redirected around $100,000 in funding that once went to parent coaching and support groups, parenting classes and the Wraparound program, which coordinates a suite of services for children identified as most at risk. While some parent coaching and classes will still be offered by VYFS through a $45,000 contract with VARSA, Lori Means at the PlaySpace said the unfunded programs were heavily relied on by some families. VYFS is seeking funding to make up the difference, Means said, but is unsure whether it will find any.

“We have the same if not higher level of requests for services and parent coaching,” she said. “We are hopeful that we’re going to find some other methods to fund our one-on-one work.”

Last year VARSA and VYFS, which in 2012 worked together to garner the state-funded Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI) grant, became mired in a dispute over how the approximately $140,000 in annual funding was spent. VARSA leaders claimed the coalition should have more say in how the funds were used and that far too much money was going to the PlaySpace, as opposed to funding a diverse set of programs.

VYFS officials, however, insisted that the funds were being spent according to a plan created when the grant was first garnered. King County ultimately agreed, saying the funds were being expended according to the plan and there had been no financial wrongdoing. But the county also ordered the two groups to work together on new communication and conflict management plans and asked VARSA to formally reassess how the CPWI grant is spent. VARSA formed a committee of volunteers that dedicated countless hours to examining the group’s role on Vashon and updating its so-called action plan and budget.

Around that time, a few key VARSA volunteers resigned, including coalition co-chair Diane Kjellberg. Lee Kopines has remained the group’s treasurer, and VanNorman became co-chair after heading the committee that crafted VARSA’s new plans. Lisa MacLeod, a swim coach who recently completed a master’s program in organizational systems, is now the other co-chair.

While county officials have said that they simply guided VARSA through the five-month process of creating plans that meet grant requirements, VARSA members say it became clear through that process that they could no longer direct so much funding to PlaySpace programs as they entered the third year of the five-year grant.

When it became apparent that VYFS would lose VARSA funding, VYFS announced it would no longer serve as fiscal sponsor for the grant. Officials there said it would be too time consuming to manage the grant at a time when the agency needed to seek alternative funding for its own programs.

Eventually the Vashon School District agreed to be VARSA’s sponsor.

“We did it because we want to support prevention efforts in the community and we had a capacity to be a fiscal agent,” said Superintendent Michael Soltman, who noted he didn’t believe the sponsorship would require a big time commitment. Funding will now flow through the district, he said, but VARSA will be responsible for planning, budgeting and reporting.

VanNorman called it difficult to see the VYFS programs defunded, but explained that the CPWI grant comes layers of requirements. For instance, some funds must go toward specific items such as a specialist in the schools, a public awareness campaign and environmental strategies. Some money can support services such as those at the PlaySpace, but at least 60 percent of those services must be proven effective at reducing teen substance use. Ultimately, the grant aims to reduce the reported drug and alcohol use of eighth and 10th graders, measured every two years by the Healthy Youth Survey, so programs should primarily target middle and high schoolers.

What’s more, VARSA recently saw funding from its other grant, the five-year federal Drug Free Communities (DFC) grant, run out. The group decided to hold off on applying for another five years, worried that its struggles would be a setback as  it competed with other coalitions to garner the second phase of the grant. Members incorporated some some items that were funded by DFC into it the CPWI budget.

Last month, the state state Department of Social and Human Services (DSHS), which helps oversee the grant, gave final approval to VARSA’s plan for spending $122,000 per year. The state recently reduced the grant by about $25,000 per year for budget reasons.

A large portion — $50,000 — will now go to support the CPWI coordinator, who is responsible for carrying out the coalition’s plans, managing its budget and reporting back to King County. Bruce, who was just hired for the job, recently graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with a degree in business management and urban studies. She said she was interested in nonprofit work and especially interested in VARSA because she has a daughter in long-term recovery from addiction. She has followed VARSA’s struggles, she said, and hopes to see the group turn a new page.

“This group could make a difference,” she said.

Under its new plan, VARSA will again send local youth to prevention conferences, continue training for liquor retailers, sponsor prescription drug take-back events and the annual roadside cleanup and mount a social norms campaign. It will organize a youth prevention club and sponsor events for teens, perhaps beginning with a bonfire after the Homecoming football game this month, Bruce said. Most recently, it purchased refreshments for the Crush the Fog event.

VARSA will also continue to provide funding for 10 hours of parent coaching a week at VYFS, as well as some VYFS workshops for parents, including Guiding Good Choices and Incredible Years.

VanNorman expressed optimism about the new plan, but also frustration over not being able to fund some items the group would have liked to continue, including PlaySpace programs.

“In a nutshell, we were less empowered to do exactly what we wanted to do with the funding,” he said. “Is this exactly what the island needs? In some cases yes, in some cases not.”

At King County, officials involved with managing the grant say they agree that confusion over roles and responsibilities likely led to VARSA’s conflict with VYFS. The coalition model, with a working board that represents different sectors of the community, is an unusual one, they say, and the county is new to the grant as well. What’s more, leadership at VARSA and VYFS has turned over since the program began.

“The experience we have with every coalition is a learning process,” said Laura Quinn, a Community Coordinator at the county’s Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division.

VARSA is still under a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) from the county that gives deadlines for certain goals it must meet, such as filling spots on the coalition and updating its website. Quinn said she doesn’t doubt VARSA will meet its CAP, which ends in December, but the plan makes it “really clear with VARSA and the state that we’re really committed to resolving some of the issues,” she said.

Brad Finegood, Assistant Director of the Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division, said that while it’s unfortunate VARSA spent several months simply working out how it will function, he also believes it is rare to see a group take on a new and complex program such as CPWI and be “highly functioning” from the beginning. Both he and Quinn commented on the strong commitment they’ve seen from VARSA volunteers, something they haven’t always seen at the four other Seattle-area coalitions.

“What I see from VARSA is that the pains of their labor will pay off immensely,” Finegood said.

VanNorman said it is tough to estimate the current number of VARSA volunteers, but they are in need of many more, and they especially hope get teens involved. The group’s long-term goal, he noted, is to establish prevention programs that can continue even after the CPWI funding ends in three years. To that end, they looking to raise additional funding through fundraisers and grants, and to simply build broad support.

“It doesn’t take money, it takes committed people,” VanNorman said. “I don’t think this is an easily solvable problem at all.”