Sonoma County and Delaware arrived at prevention from almost opposite directions: one delivering universal Tier 1 prevention countywide, the other offering targeted Tier 2 and 3 intervention to students already identified as at risk. Different institutions. Different scales. Different starting points — and one program that met them both exactly where they were.
Two places, one pattern
Sonoma County
231.4%
growth in IMPACT licenses in use across the county, 2023–2025
Sonoma County
+58%
rise in student confidence helping a friend struggling with substance use
Delaware
43%
shift in students’ beliefs about marijuana’s addictive potential, at one school
Sonoma County
35%
shift in beliefs about opioids/fentanyl’s addictive potential, same school
Two starting points: a county’s vision, a state’s program
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County’s Department of Health Services (DHS) built its approach around a simple principle: invest upstream, before risk factors escalate, rather than respond only after problems emerge. DHS tracked youth health trends through the California Healthy Kids Survey and set out to find one comprehensive curriculum that could reach middle and high schoolers consistently across the county’s many districts — and their families too.
“Supporting our youth by empowering them with the information they need to make healthy choices is essential.”
Will Gayowski, Substance Use Disorders and Recovery Services Section Manager, Sonoma County DHS
Delaware
Two thousand five hundred miles east, the Delaware Department of Education (DOE) chose a different path: a statewide mission “to empower every learner with the highest quality education,” carried out through its Substance Use Prevention & Intervention (SUPI) for Delaware Schools Program. The DOE brings IMPACT to schools as part of its Tier 2 and 3 track — targeted support for students who need more than a single universal lesson.
−30%
11th graders’ perceived risk of marijuana use, over a decade
−24%
their perceived risk of binge drinking
Source: Delaware School Survey.
Different playbooks, same underlying belief: reach students with real information, and they make safer choices.
The shared solution: IMPACT
Both DHS and the DOE partnered with Panaptic to bring IMPACT, an evidence-informed, community-based curriculum, into their classrooms. The rollouts looked different. The reasons behind them did not.
Built to reach every classroom
Online, standalone courses any school staff can deliver — no original curriculum to build, no prevention expertise required. In Sonoma County, that meant a curriculum any of the county’s diverse districts could adopt without adding to teachers’ workload.
“Some school staff think they will have to create their own materials to launch IMPACT and are visibly relieved when they learn that these already exist.” — Peg Enslen
A whole community, not just a classroom
Family/Guardian and Educator courses sit alongside the Student courses. In Sonoma County, the Family course’s Spanish translation helped it reach the county’s large Hispanic and Latino population.
In Delaware, the Educator course gave staff a shared vocabulary: “All staff who take the course see what it’s about and start to use a common language. That’s huge.”
Grounded in evidence
Both leaders chose IMPACT because it’s built on prevention science, not tradition — and both value the data it returns.
“There is a strong foundation in statistical analysis in the IMPACT program outcomes.” — Will Gayowski “The schools’ annual IMPACT data is a great resource. It makes me feel so much better seeing the results.” — Peg Enslen
“For the first time I have the same answer for every site, every board meeting, and every funder who asks what we’re actually doing about prevention.”
Placeholder Name
Director of Student Services
Cotati-Rohnert Park USD
What changed
Students
Refusal-strategy recall rose 24% → 62%. Perceived risk of daily cannabis use rose 18 points. Self-reported vaping fell 31% in 9th grade.
Educators
Every health teacher across four sites finished the program with no added planning time, and said they’d teach it again next year.
District
One consistent program of record across sites, and a reporting export that satisfies TUPE and board requests in the same breath.
Figures shown are placeholders pending the district’s final survey data.
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Panaptic provides a compassionate, engaging, and evidence-based substance use prevention curriculum that shifts perspectives in your community.