 |
 |
Home
Did You Know...
Six Year Strategic Plan
RCW 70.190.060
Policy Board Minutes
Membership & Partners
Outcomes
Health & Well Being
Community Projects
Opportunities and Resources
Grantees
Contact Us |
 |
|
Community Projects Are Building Capacity
|
Strengthening Community Capacity to Improve the Lives of Children and Families in Wahkiakum County
Community Capacity is more than just “individual” or “organizational” capacity to implement prevention programs. It includes shared focus, collaborative leadership among a set of widespread community partners, innovative strategies based on learning from changing conditions, and result-based decision making.
This brief report presents preliminary findings from an ongoing study documenting how four high risk counties in the State of Washington managed to build community capacity and achieve significantly higher reductions in substance use in the past ten years, among all their youth, the whole youth population.
These findings may be important for current policy discussions on how best to restructure efforts in times of fiscal crises - decreased funding for many specialized ‘prevention’ programs, and the opportunity to partner better with local communities in mutually beneficial ways. This study focuses on counties where resources are limited and challenges are great. Poorer and often rural, these counties are confronting an accumulation of youth and family problems with large at risk populations. This study is able to take advantage of newly available results from the Healthy Youth Surveys conducted in schools every two years from 2000 to 2008 with response rates sufficient to estimate trends at smaller geographic levels - including Wahkiakum County.
|
Youth Leadership Initiative
One element of Wahkiakum Community Network's capacity building is our Youth Leadership Initiative. Developed in 2008, this initiative strives to connect youth to leadership training and skill building, engaging youth in prevention and increasing youth volunteerism and mobilization. |
| LEADERSHIP TRAINING |
Each year Wahkiakum Community Network sponsors local youth volunteers to attend CADCA's National Youth Leadership Conference
The Forum brings together more than 2,500 participants representing community anti-drug coalitions from all regions of the country, government leaders, youth, addiction treatment professionals, researchers, educators, law enforcement professionals and faith-based leaders.
In July, 2010 seven youth and two adult's attended the conference. The coalition members focused on reducing marijuana use in Wahkiakum County...learn more. |
|
CADCA’s National Leadership Forum is a 4-day conference packed with opportunities to learn the latest strategies to fight substance abuse and from nationally-known experts and policy makers.
|
ENGAGING YOUTH IN PREVENTION |
Each biennium, Wahkiakum Community Network hosts the Healthy Youth Summit where local middle and high school students get together to review the results from the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey, a statewide student survey to assess the current risk and protective factors relevant in youth's lives.
In February of 2010, Wahkiakum Community Network met with every class from 7th - 11th grades to present the local data, engage youth in identifying prevention priorities, and assess if there are any up and coming issues of concern not yet revealed in the data. Residual benefits of hosting the summit also include improving the quality of the data collected in the future and increasing the youth believe that they are valued in the community.
|
|
Students reviewed trends from six years of data, prioritized risky behaviors, discussed protective factors, and brainstormed major topics of concern. These include issues such as youth violence, substance abuse, and community laws and norms. |
The event was facilitated by Julia Dilley, an Epidemiologist from Washington State, who presented detailed data from the survey that included statistics regarding risk and protective factors which compared local schools with statewide data. In addition, time was spent recapping accomplishments resulting from the 2005 Healthy Youth Summit that ultimately led the Network to select Community Norms as its primary focus to reducing underage drinking when the youth identified alcohol as their number one concern in 2005.
|
 |
|
| SKILL BUILDING |
Over the past years, Wahkiakum Community Network has sponsored multiple summer youth employment opportunities. Most recently, Wahkiakum youth participated in the national American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Summer Youth Employment Program. This program offered local youth 180 hours of paid
work experience and training during their summer break. This was a collaborative effort of Wahkiakum Community Network and Wahkiakum County Port 2 as was part of a multi-county effort.
|
|
The goal of the summer youth employment projects are to expose youth to work readiness training
and connect youth to local resources, community leaders and increase exposure to local career opportunities. Topics included work ethic,
appropriate workplace attire and behaviors,
financial management, communications and
conflict resolution, team building, leadership, and
workplace rights and policies.
|
INCREASING YOUTH VOLUNTEERISM AND MOBILIZATION
BRAG NIGHT |
|
On April 22, 2009 Wahkiakum Community Network youth volunteers spearheaded Brag Night, a local event created to recognize the value of volunteerism in Wahkiakum County. Held on Wahkiakum Community Network's 13th anniversary, nearly 100 people got together to honor the power of volunteerism The event was held at Elochoman Valley Grange and opened up with a welcome speech by Network Chair Kassy Burdick. who read a letter by Governor Christine Gregoire written to Wahkiakum County volunteers , praising the efforts and importance of volunteerism in Washington State. Youth lead the night with the debut of their film to honor volunteerism in Wahkiakum County, a film developed by the participants of Wahkiakum Community Network sponsored Youth Leadership and Media Project, a collaboration of the Network and WSU Wahkiakum County Extension.
____________________________________________________________________
DRINKING AND DRIVING PLEDGE DRIVE
|
|
|
Wahkiakum Community Network collaborates with Wahkiakum and Naselle-Grays River School Districts to implement a Drinking & Driving Pledge Drive, a student lead annual project to help our make sure our youth have a bright future ahead of them. The week before prom youth volunteers host a pledge drive to encourage their peers to sign a pledge to not drink and drive or ride in a car with someone who has been drinking.
____________________________________________________________________
BOTTLE TAGGING
|
In the spring of each year, just before high school graduation, Wahkiakum Community Network, Wahkiakum Sheriff’s Office, local merchants and local youth volunteers collaborate to implement Wahkiakum Community Network's Bottle Tagging Project to help educate the community on the penalties for providing alcohol to minors. Volunteers visit all the different local retailers such as the liquor store, convenient stores, and retail markets over the course of the afternoon and distribute Bottle Hangers and stickers throughout Wahkiakum County.
|
 . |
Please protect our Youth
Don't supply Alcohol to Minors
It's a Crime! RCW 66.44.270
This project was modeled after Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) Sticker Shock Campaign as an awareness project to inform people about the laws surrounding underage drinking. Stickers and bottle hangers were designed, developed and then placed on packages of alcohol indicating that it is illegal for adults to purchase alcohol for minors. Learn more about MADD www.madd.org
|
____________________________________________________________________
HEALTHY COMMUNITY PLEDGE DRIVE
|
|
Healthy Community Pledge Drive: Making changes in our community must start within ourselves. This was the pledge signed by 136 youth and community members on July 21, 2007 including individual adults, groups of teens, families signing together, community leaders, fair princesses, school administration, business owners, and generations young and old.
Wahkiakum Community Network youth lead the way at a prevention booth at the Bald Eagles Day festival in Cathlamet as a way to engage families in the Network’s effort to reduce underage drinking by creating a community pledge wall. The pledge committed participants to become positive role models, influence peers in a positive way, and pledge to obey the law.
|
|
|
Participants who signed the pledge were offered a free tile imprinted with their hand and signature. All the tiles were collected, glazed and fired by Ruth Doumit Designs, to be framed into an art mural and placed on the east wall of the Doumit Building in downtown Cathlamet as a testament to the community’s commitment to living a healthy lifestyle.
|
|
|
|
 |
