Our Mission

The East Boston Alliance for Support, Treatment, Intervention and Education–EASTIE–is a coalition of community agencies and residents that mobilizes youth, families, community members and leaders to prevent and reduce substance misuse among youth and adults in our community. We are a diverse coalition working together to promote a healthy East Boston for all by reducing risk factors and building protective factors at the individual, family, community and societal levels. EASTIE has actively engaged with East Boston youth and implemented communitywide, evidence and practice-based strategies to prevent and reduce youth substance use. Recognizing the importance of peer and community-led change, EASTIE is also committed to growing our youth peer leadership and parent programs to encourage young people and families to take an increasingly lead role in the coalition’s work. EASTIE's primary focus is to address mental health stressors, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and health disparities that drive East Boston youth to turn to substances as a coping mechanism. As such, EASTIE is working to prevent and reduce nicotine and marijuana vaping by middle and high school students, especially Latinx youth. In the longer term, these prevention efforts will disrupt pathways to opioid/prescription drug use, as these young people grow into adulthood. To achieve these goals, EASTIE is implementing a cross-sectoral, strengths-based and healing-centered approach to foster resilience and to promote health equity and systems change. In particular, EASTIE is using the Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) approach, an evidence-based framework grounded in the latest Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences (PACEs) science that demonstrates how positive childhood experiences (PCEs) effectively prevent and significantly mitigate the negative physical, mental and behavioral health impacts of ACES, such as substance misuse.