Formerly called Scott County Citizens Against Substance Abuse, CASA has served as the Local Coordinating Council (LCC) in Scott County since 1989.  The community anti-drug coalitions approved by the Governor’s Commission for a Drug Free Indiana were established by the general assembly in 1989. The goal was to develop local coalitions in each of the 92 Indiana counties to assess and address local substance abuse issues. Coalitions comprised of individuals and community leaders representing different sectors in a community are encouraged to work together to reduce the negative impacts of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs on its residents. In 2010, the Coalition was renamed CEASe of Scott County. Once the “National Court Appointed Special Advocates” (CASA) came to Scott County,  Citizens Against Substance Abuse changed its name to CEASe (the Coalition to Eliminate the Abuse of Substances).  

As part of the Indiana state statute, CEASe is charged with the responsibility of assessing the impact of substances on the community by gathering data for its Comprehensive Community Plan from treatment providers, law enforcement, justice, schools, community leaders, coroner’s office, hospital, EMS, etc., and to track those trends. Once the assessment is completed, the coalition prepares a three-year Comprehensive Community Plan (CCP) which outlines the identified priority problems, objectives, and goals regarding alcohol and other drug use in three areas: 1) prevention/education, 2) treatment/intervention, and 3) law enforcement/criminal justice.

CEASe is charged with the administration of the community drug fund created by state statute. It is a system by which fines, assessed and collected through the court system from specific drug and alcohol offenses, are released back into the community as awarded grants to support agencies and providers. This allows these recipients to identify and expand services to those individuals adversely affected by substances in the areas of prevention/education, treatment/intervention and justice/law enforcement. CEASe has established a fiscally responsible administration policy regarding the distribution of these funds as a tool to assist it in achieving its goals as identified in the CCP. CEASe writes a new Comprehensive Community plan every three years, and completes a plan update each year in between. This plan is a collaborative effort to assess the impact of substance abuse in Scott County, to collect data, to identify issues and to evaluate existing and new services. Our plan addresses alcohol and other drug issues at the local level as indicated by the assessment process (needs assessments, data collection, treatment, prevention, and justice/law enforcement committee input, and community input).