Prevention First is a nonprofit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 resource center based in Springfield, Illinois

Springfield, Illinois

Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...

, committed to building and supporting healthy, drug-free communities through public education, professional training and effective tools for those working to prevent drug use

Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...

 and related issues such as violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

, teen pregnancy and academic failure.

As the Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 alliance partner for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America

Partnership for a Drug-Free America

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America is a non-profit organization that helps parents prevent, intervene in and find treatment for drug and alcohol use by their children...

, Prevention First has won several national awards for its efforts to educate and inform parents, teens and others about how to prevent youth drug use.

Prevention First is the only resource center of its kind in Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. Its services include a Student Assistance Center that provides training and support services to schools, particularly in relation to Student Assistance Programs designed to identify those at risk of school failure and intervene to help them succeed. Its Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 branch office houses an extensive prevention-focused specialized library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

, while a free Clearinghouse in Springfield distributes nearly 1 million brochures, posters and other materials to schools, youth group

Youth group

Youth group may refer to:* Youth Group, an Australian band* Youth club, a social and activities club for young people* Youth ministry, an age-specific type of religious ministry...

s, community organization

Community organization

Community organizations are civil society non-profits that operate within a single local community. They are essentially a subset of the wider group of nonprofits. Like other nonprofits they are often run on a voluntary basis and are self funded...

s, law enforcement

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

 agencies and others each year.

See also

• Alcohol
  Alcohol
  In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
  
  
• Crime
  Crime
  Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
  
  
• Domestic Violence
  Domestic violence
  Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
  
  
• Drug Abuse
  Drug abuse
  Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
  
  
• Illinois
  Illinois
  Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
  
  
• Tobacco
  Tobacco
  Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...