Letters of support - Tobacco-free parks – 2/4/11

Q: A Tobacco Free Partnership in Florida is working on tobacco-free parks. The Florida Department of Health is helping to gather letters of support, and would like a couple of templates to share. Do other states have sample letters of support regarding tobacco-free parks?

A:

1. Alabama: We don't have a letter that we hand to communities.  We just approach them in a face to face meeting and have a sample policy. Please see attached for the sample policy.
    
2. Minnesota: Sharing this nice tobacco-free parks fact sheet from the Association for Nonsmokers—Minnesota.
    
3. Nevada: This document, Creating Healthy Communities Using Recreation as a Tool for Tobacco Prevention, developed by the Association for Nonsmokers—Minnesota and the SmokeFree Soccer Initiative of the Minnesota Department of Health, has a host of examples.
    
4. Texas (City of Austin): We are still very early in our tobacco-free park effort so we do not yet have any sample letters.  We have been conducting some focus groups and are finding support for the themes that relate to parks being family areas (playgrounds areas were almost universally supported) and the litter aspect also seems to resonate well.  Los Angeles got smoke-free parks largely on the fire safety angle.

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