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Prevention Works! Minutes |
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Clallam County Prevention Works!
Community Coalition Minutes Those attending were Susan Alexander, Rachel Anderson, Pam Arnott, Ann Bell, Jim Borte, Florence Bucierka, Jennifer Charles, Kathleen Dionne, Angie Graff, Fiona Hert, Susan Hillgren, Elna Kawal, Lynn Keenan, Cynthia Martin, Karen Meyer, Nita Quan, Jane Shefler, Norma Turner. The meeting began with a talk by Lynn Keenan who came from the WA Council for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. She came to discuss the new Washington personalized license plates that WCPCAN is now promoting. You can purchase a personalized license plate. Other states have done these license plate drives and made between $15,000 to $150,000 through this campaign. The proceeds go to the Children Trust Fund which is administered by WCPCAN. These funds will then be used for programs to prevent child abuse and neglect. She brought signature sheets because they need 2000 signatures. When people sign the sheets, it doesn’t mean they will purchase license plates but it opens up the option in the future to anyone. Anyone can take a sheet and get other signatures. The cost will be regular $32 plus maybe an additional $45 but she will check it out. She will let us know for sure the costs. Once these are ready they hope to have them sometime maybe the early part of next year or certainly by summer. Rachel Anderson from Tobacco Coalition spoke as a new committee from Prevention Works!. The coalition has four objectives, 1) Capacity Development like this in community and at the state level, community awareness, etc., 2) Prevent Initiation by having compliance checks and retailer education, 3) Promote Cessation through partnerships like OMC, schools (through Sue Renes, counselors, and interventionists, and juvenile services, provide information, smoking awareness days, November 20 Great American Smokeout to spread word about cessation and stopping , Kick Butts day etc.), and 4) Secondhand Smoke Issues and education. They are also working on reducing smoking rates of pregnant women and their families especially in Clallam County where it is higher than the state average. They just came back from the Yakima conferences and took some youth with her. They go to the stores, show ID and if they don’t get sold cigarettes Rachel gives the clerk a reward and checks to make sure the clerk is doing the job the way they should be doing. They also have clerks attend some classes to tell them how to ask, when, how to spot fake id or unacceptable ID. They also promote cessation with their quit line and their website for free counseling and cessation support . They also have an agreement with the hospital to provide classes for other trying to quit. Schools and juvenile sources have let Rachel know that we need to provide support for youth to quit smoking. We know this is a life-long effort. This is before tobacco infractions are given. There are also classes at Family Planning. She provides health information to local care and treatment providers. Down the line, the plan is to have a way of reimbursing people for providing this kind of help to others. DASA and Department of Health are working together. About 60% of restaurants (?) in our county are smoke free. The entire inside of restaurant and bars must be smokefree. These are then listed in a guide. More and more restaurants are asking about obtaining this designation. We also have 68 lodging and 82 restaurants. Their smoke free litter bags were a great success. She also does public education programs and works with providers to train them so that their staff will understand about nicotine addiction. Using motivation skills in the home visiting programs. Hopefully, they will make headway in reducing the 25% of the women who are pregnant and currently smoking. This is the 5th highest in the state. Year three they will be working with Quileute Tribe. She is funded through the tobacco settlement. An all day class on smoking was very positively received by the hospital and First Step. 75% of the county residents don’t smoke. This is higher than the state rate. This is reported through a health survey. Low income women are much more likely to smoke. Pam Arnott said that during one week time, preterm labor women, 4 out of 5 were smokers. Smoking jacket contest is a second hand smoke issue. The smoking jacket person is not going to quit but to encourage them to go outside and it will at least reduce asthma, allergies, bronchitis, respiratory diseases. Nicotene stays in the breast milk for 90 minutes so breastfeed first and then smoke. Nita talked about the baby having contact with the mother’s clothes. Jacket helps the mothers who are having difficulties quitting. Rachel brought today’s refreshments and we thanked her. Treasurer’s Report We have $8300 spread between checking and CD. We have made $3785 this year. Every time we do an event we do seem to make some money off of it. Jane Shelfer, the treasurer indicated she would be stepping down at the end of this term. Merger Cynthia reported on the request from the Clallam County Community Network to wait for a bit before meeting together. They will need some additional time to meet and talk about this issues more fully. Committee Reports Pam Arnott reported that Jennifer and Florence had registration forms with 50 signed up for the Home Visitor’s Conference. Ida said the speaker was a very inspirational speaker. She is very inspirational to help us confront people and do it humorously, with lots of activities. There was still room to sign up. Publicity Jim Borte has nothing new to report Strategic Planning Committee Norma Turner reported that the committee hasn’t met recently. Parent Education Committee Fiona Hert has approached the college abut getting someone to replace her. Things are on a bit of a hold for this group. Rock and Roll Fiona Hert is working on this committee now. She would like to have the list to reconvene it. This is the adolescent group from Prevention Works! It began several years ago. The last couple of years funding issues and even babies have slowed the progress. KEYS Kathleen Dionne reported on the last meeting of KEYS which was the end of October. They had a great turnout to talk about transitioning to kindergarten. They had put out special invitation letters throughout the community. They are discussing what is needed and what kindergarten teachers expect of incoming students. They are also looking at what kind of pre-kindergarten assessments are being done. How do parents get the information on what is necessary for success. They want to begin with what the need is in Clallam County. Announcements Florence Bucierka submitted a Foundation for Early Learning grant to support the coming meeting with John Medina on March 12, on the Home Visitor’s Summit, the Parent Education Summit and on the Grant Writing class. We haven’t heard back from them yet. John Medina will be March 12. Florence has the report from what our survey’s came up with. She will get us more information on that. Karen Meyer reported on the Communities that Care that is a project between the Port Angels School District and the University of Washington. It is a five phase project. Right now we are prioritizing risk and protective factors. The 2 protective factors chosen were Family and School Recognition for Prosocial Involvement and the Risk factors were Poor Family Management (we have data from grades 6 through 12) , Favorable Attitude Towards Antisocial Behavior (Peer/Individual) and Academic Failure, and Perceived Availability of Drugs (Community Domain). The group is focusing on grades 6 through 12 but not sure what the plan is after that time. They are going to study 5th graders over a period of time. Currently there is an issue involving one school that is hesitant to participate because of the loss of instructional time. Florence says this is the continuation of a project that was started 5 years ago. The meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia
Martin, Substitute Secretary |
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