May 13-19th is Prevention Week. The Partnership believes prevention is key to bettering quality of life for Tioga County residents and applies this belief in several different venues.
The Opioid Coalition:
The Partnership's Opioid Coalition works to temper the effects of the opioid crisis through the efforts of our Opioid Coalition. Partners of this coalition are implementing a warm handoff process that sees overdose victims get into treatment right away. The Opioid Coalition is also championing drug take back efforts in our county and has begun distributing drug deactivation kits to senior citizens.
Strengthening Families 10-14 Years Program a.k.a. Family Night Out:
While the word "prevention" is generally used as it relates to substance abuse, another important aspect of prevention comes in the form of strengthening social bonds and discouraging anti-social behavior. Strengthening family bonds and improving communication is the main focus of the Partnership's multi-session Family Night Out program. Currently, this program is seeing success in Elkland, and has even more positive outcomes that resulted from 4 other deliveries in two other county locations.
Too Good For Drugs Program:
Prevention also sits firmly in school curriculums. On staff, we have a prevention specialist who is specifically trained to deliver the evidence-based Too Good For Drugs program to school students. This program does touch on substance abuse, but also, more importantly, addresses the root causes of why youth may turn to drug use in the first place. This program is being implemented in grades 1 through 7.
Collaborating with Others who do Prevention Work
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The Partnership celebrates the prevention eff
orts of others such as the highschool students of Wellsboro's Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) Club. (See the 2018 SADD Club pic at the top of the newsletter!) Each spring, SADD stops by the Partnership office for a pizza party before or after going to the elementary schools to perform their educational, good decision-making puppet shows. We also find ways to support our local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, since their work in pairing mentors with youth is proven to decrease antisocial behaviors and increase beneficial social connections.
Just this past weekend, our Safe Kids workgroup--the local partner for PA Safe Kids Coalition, helped to host Safe Kids Day on the Green in Wellsboro in conjunction with the Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness event that was organized by Tioga County Dept. of Human Services. Collaborations like this one bring awareness to important local issues and educate the public about what they can do to help.
Communities That Care Prevention Process:
Many sectors in community including law enforcement, school administration, business, the faith community, local government, youth-serving organizations, and community members participate in the Communities That Care (CTC) process. The CTC process includes taking a close look at fresh local Pa Youth Survey data (2017 survey data should be available in the next few days!) The CTC group then detects themes in the data and prioritizes areas in which prevention is needed. After that, they work together to select and implement new proven-effective programs that speak to the issues found in the data. It is alot of behind-the-scenes work, but members stay the course because it's very satisfying to see positive outcomes reported by families and kids affected by the chosen interventions.
These are just a few ways the Partnership engages in prevention. Substance abuse prevention, injury prevention, preventable and chronic disease prevention, and even environmental advocacy have been a long time focus of our various workgroups throughout our past 25 years. We sincerely hope the need for prevention wanes, but until that day comes, we'll be here ready to build new partnerships and work to make Tioga County a healthy place to live, work, and play.
