BRYCE CANYON CITY, Utah — The Bryce Valley Prevention Coalition held a meeting on March 22 for key community leaders and businesses. The meeting took place at Ruby’s Inn at 6:00 p.m. and signified an effort to clarify the coalition’s role in the community as well as write and become eligible for additional grants.
Addressing the Purpose of the Bryce Valley Coalition
According to a handout created by the Bryce Valley Coalition, coalitions “bring the community together to build partnerships to address the issues of substance abuse and mental health as one unit.”
Since the Bryce Valley Prevention Coalition was created in 2019, it has applied for grants but was not able to do much during COVID, as we saw with many businesses and organizations. It’s hoping to be able to do more now.
“It’s all based around prevention,” said Emilee Clark, the current Bryce Valley Youth Activities coordinator, prevention of substance abuse and the issues around it.
Those at the meeting stressed the fact that the coalition is not here to take over from what the local leaders and businesses were already doing. In fact, locals were already doing an excellent job of prevention in many ways! They hoped instead that members of the community could see the coalition as a resource, and another opportunity to take advantage of.
“Our goal is not to take away. Our goal is just to be a resource,” said coalition member Nick Pollock. Moreover, he hoped the community and the coalition could work together to always help make things a little better.
Figuring Out What Works
Melissa Veater, the Prevention Specialist Supervisor for the county, was the main speaker at the meeting. She has been working in prevention for almost 18 years. She said that when she first started, the prevention professionals were pretty much the only people addressing these needs. That wasn’t enough!
Since then, communities have started to get involved. “That’s really important to know that leaders do care about these issues,” said Melissa, as more and more research showed the important role that everyone in a community has in prevention.
The research shows that coalitions work. Community readiness surveys and SHARP surveys, which gather perceptions of substance use and mental health in the community, help to let the coalition know where the problems lie. But even more important than finding the risk factors, is finding the protective factors.
These are some of the protective factors that have been found in prevention research:
- Opportunities for prosocial involvement in the community.
- Attachment and bonding to family.
- Opportunities for prosocial involvement in school.
- Social skills.
- Belief in the moral order.
These are all things that the community can help with.
Involving the Community
Finally the Bryce Valley Prevention Coalition wanted to let leaders in the community know just how much they could do to help. Additionally, it showed the coalition works well only if leaders from all kinds of groups participate.
“Prevention not only belongs to the substance abuse professionals,” read their handout, “it is the business of everyone from faith-based organizations, law enforcement, school, health care, businesses, and parents. If all these groups are addressing the same risk and protective factors together, we will have more effective prevention work.”
As such, the leaders at the meeting included religious leaders, school teachers, business-owners, media, national park officials and even a police officer. This brought together leaders of all sorts to talk about relevant issues and fixes in the community.
Some of their ideas included paying for admissions in the school play, advertising a free national park day, designating certain buildings as meeting places for youth, and bringing in guest speakers and classes to teach families good practices.
In the most recent event, the coalition brought Jennie Taylor to come and share her message about resilience in families and communities.
The meeting ended on a very positive note of hope and anticipation for future events. As Bryce Valley Coalition stressed, it was there as a resource for Bryce Valley.
“The coalition can do things for your area,” Melissa finished. “What do you need?”
– The Byway
Feature image courtesy the Bryce Valley Prevention Coalition/Facebook.