Prevention Works! Minutes 

Clallam County Prevention Works!
Community Coalition Annual Meeting

March 22, 2004, Olympic Medical Center with Telelinking to the West End

Those present - Rachel Anderson, Stacie Neff, Kathleen Dionne, Ida Carroll, Cheryl McDonald, Sarah Miller, Angie Graff, Susan Hillgren, Patty Hannah, Barbara Clampett, Fiona Hert, Elna Kawal, Ellen Fetcheit, Cynthia Martin, Jane Shefler, Karen Meyer, Mike Svec, Jennifer Charles, Shaine Schramling, Jim Borte, Scott Waller, Nita Quan

Meeting was called to order by Cynthia Martin, VP

Election of officers was held. Norma Turner, Shaine Schramling, and Rachel Anderson were all voted into office.

Financial Report – Jane Shefler

Jane passed around copies financial report. We still have money coming in from the John Medina event.

Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet

Approx. $5000 and $2800 in CD.

Cynthia went through Power Point Presentation – copies of presentation are available.

Scott Waller, from Dept. of Social & Health Services & Division of Alcohol & Substance Abuse began

What we are doing in Clallam County is exemplary. Groups sought us out for funding. However, it is in the past. Now what we do is difficult – figuring out where to go from here. Shadows of the Neanderthal (David Hutchens) – Scott had a reading. It is a great series of books on organizational development.

Think of partnerships that we already have developed and then think about undeveloped partnerships. Trying to figure out now how we strategically plan and vision ourselves into next version of Prevention Works. Agency influences, funding system influences, philosophical – bring all of that together to start charting course for PW for down the road. Some of the things we as a group see as opportunities, see as challenges, meeting those challenges – went around the circle for attendees to share.

Jim (CC Sheriff’s Dept, PW Board) – Code of the Cave – challenges for prevention efforts – how to get more men involved in prevention. See that they are more equal.

Shaine (Parenting Matters Foundation, PW Secretary)– How to get all groups to work together.

Jennifer (CCHHS Administrative Secretary)– more people using and teaching parent education curricula

Mike (When United Together) – new here – reaching out to the youth

Karen (Communities that Care, PW Board) – observation over past year relative to bigger prevention picture – school, teachers – need to know more about prevention staff – tough battle to forge. Awareness of prevention. Valuable collaboration that could happen there – doing parent ed – need to have buy in from the schools. Have schools interface more with Prevention Works.

Jane (Community Member, outgoing PW Board) – Need to figure out a way to involve people who are not agency related – one of the problems is that we have a smaller group that does most of the work. Need to come up with way to involve general public.

Cynthia (Parenting Matters Foundation, PW VP) – Need school people here – need from every district. All should have a representative. Should be working on the same page. More direct participation.

Ellen (Port Angeles School District) – As a school person, see a need for administrative involvement. Direct service staff (teachers, paraeducators, and administrators) are so busy – back to back to back all the time, they don’t have a lot of energy left over. No child left behind. As PW can look at KEYS project – do have a chance to hook more school people. Primary prevention is now in Kindergarten – substance abuse – may be on to something – supplement what is being done in the schools.

Scott – school and communities working together has been an age old dilemma.

Elna (Sequim School District, KEYS co-chair) – School Board Member – works with KEYS. Trying to do some helping with transition into kindergarten – trying to get school and other community members that have vested interest in children – formulate what do we need to do to get kids ready for school. There is a great disconnect – some feel shunned by the school, then K teachers may not get information. How do we create some of the good ideas and put them into practice without funding.

Fiona (Northwest Services Council, ROCK N ROLL Co-chair) – share many sentiments already shared. Issue as Rock N Roll chair – how to increase outreach, increase collaboration within community, have ownership for tasks. Be careful with tasks to assign to participants – have some commonality – meaningful. What are the missions that we need to accomplish and how can we involve people in those.

Jane gave some history – Keys and Rock N Roll – under umbrella of PW, last year – decided to expand PW to all through. Always had liason from Keys and Rock N Roll. Equality is now here.

Discussion of increased awareness of Rock N Roll & Keys within Prevention Works!

Barbara (Peninsula College) – goal is to interface with the college.

Patty (United Way) – Wonderful groupings – have gotten really focused on the activities – measure things. Things are NOT getting better – child abuse, drop outs, would like to see OUTCOMES – being able to report to the community. Question – maybe they are not measuring the correct things. United Way has been fiscal agent previously – measuring success of program at beginning and end. Long range differences is she would like to see – school, behavior.

Susan (Family Planning of Clallam County, Rock N Roll Co-Chair) – See people who do different groups – how can we really reach the kids. We have wonderful programs. Increased participation.

Cynthia – As our focus has been 0-4 previously, we haven’t really been reaching out to the kids – rather than parents. Now that we are working with all the age groups –

Angie (Olympic Medical Center, outgoing PW President) – More parental participation – we do a wonderful job, but need to have parents (and teenagers) and families at risk at the table as well. We maybe make decisions without the players being at the table sometimes. (Focus Population) Mentioned conversation with at-risk mom who was talking about her experience at John Medina event.

Sarah (American Cancer Society) – Newer to group. There are a lot of prevention programs in ACS – there may be a way for partnership – nutrition and wellness – families or staff. Large Relay for Life – access to some other volunteers who are interested in other types of prevention. Increased collaboration.

Cheryl McDonald (American Lung Association) – Tobacco prevention – had attended prior tobacco prevention coalition meetings in the past. Works with 11 other counties – goes to a lot of meetings – ranges from a roomful of people in Clark County – to sitting across from 1 other person. Some coalitions – can still be rehashing things for extended periods of time. Clallam County is a shining star – statewide. Has frequently referred people to Rachel (pregnancy, parenting mothers, secondhand smoke) – as example of what can be done. Teens against Tobacco – program for high school students to go into elementary schools to be tobacco free. Have a number trained here in Clallam County – have met with a lot of administrative resistance. Have had teacher, counselor, Prevention & Intervention Specialist, nurse – but administrative or superintendent not agreeing. Most other rural counties – from outside looking in – see it as rural but within our county – identity crisis – what occurs within the county vs. how others view our county. Geographical diversity – getting people to one location is an issue.

Scott – Themes that are developing – what it is we can do as a whole to address those themes.

Ida (West End Outreach, PW Board) – Other groups – with Oregon folks – make a big splash – create some change. In Oregon – kept kids in their community – state paid the community what they would have paid if they were in some state institution – able to utilize the money. Systems we work with will continue to beuraucratic – Dennis Mahoney.

Ellen – suggesting capturing Pete Peterson (Juvenile Family Sources)

Scott – National Center for Restorative Justice (Dennis Mahoney)

Kathleen (Keys Co-Chair) – Everything she would say has been said – communication, reaching out to at-risk families – maybe we’ve been too broad – focusing on an at-risk group in the community. If we’re looking for results, we may be fragmented in our efforts. We will have results but they make take longer to show up. May be too soon to see a lot of results. Need the information that we are communicating within our group to broader group.

Rachel (CCHHS, Tobacco Chair) – Communication is a big issue. Other thing she has seen in 3 years in this community is that we as a prevention and treatment team – only so much time in the day to attend various meetings. Sense is that people are tuckered out – of adding one more thing to add to the “to do” list.

Progression in organizations – as it matures, as people move on to other things, some of the passion goes away.

Look at a few pieces to focus on – down the road and some specific action steps.

Focus population

Communication – between agencies, between PW & community (including schools)

What kind of impact are we making and how are we attempting to show it.

What it is we can do specifically about a few of these things.

Break

Prioritized Risk & Protective Factors

Try to frame using work we have already done.

# 1 Priority – Family Management Problems – Red   Green what we are doing

Don’t appear to be seeing big changes in child abuse and other “Family Management Problems”

·         Home Visiting – Birth to 3 (Maternity Support Services – Home Visiting Programs – First Step, Health Department, Olympic Medical Services Family Services, West End Outreach) – need to meet high risk criteria (poverty, substance abuse, disability, teen) – may also be prenatal.

o       Is Home Visiting getting to the folks we wanted it to? Consensus is yes.

o       Program delivery problem may be retention – people are in and out. Some choices – may be family, financial.

o       Highest risk may be short termers. May be refusal. It is a voluntary program.

o       PASD had offered to follow children – but resources haven’t been there. Privacy and financial issues.

·         Parent Education – prenatal, birthing classes, parenting classes, newsletters, do we have a referral system. Parent ed is voluntary – lets have a geographic distribution of parenting classes – have the curricula.

o       Out of home foster placement, child abuse – make impact on those statistics – must reach most at risk.

o       Cynthia – not just most at-risk parents that need help – largely self-refer based on publicity

o       Court ordered parenting classes – Healthy Families. Have reapplied through Network.

o       Mediation – least successful problem solvers – told they had to go.

o       Higher risk group – needs more intensive kinds of work. Statewide issue.

o       Folks who self-refer – publicity, looking to improve parenting skills.

o       Do we need to take a look at something that is more intensive population – Head Start population (Ellen) – not much going on in Head Start in parent education population – strength based way.

·         Curricula we are using – is great. Universal folks – do an excellent job of teaching knowledge and skill. May need to look at how to get to court referred folks, Head Start -

·         Elementary school age – self-refer classes – Nurturing Program, Love & Logic, Parents Who Care, Incredible Years

·         Communication – information is going out. What types of communication is going on with schools – information goes out (PW information – many members).

o       Patty asked about Communities that Care – will go primarily through schools. PASD has been supportive related to CTC – there will be a return on the investment. Will have a ½ time parent education recruiter. Having dedicated staff.

o       When people know you are doing a class

o       Get update from Healthy Families – waiting list of 120 parenting classes.

o       Drive Time Radio – 6:30-8:00 p.m.

·         Outcomes – what do you measure to show effectiveness –

o       Healthy Youth Survey (County)

o       Community Youth Development (PA only)

o       Show success in targeted populations –

·         Targeting – Head Start – opportunistic – some group to track over time with relative ease. May not be possible to track through school level – requires negotiation with schools so data does not go beyond there. Schools will do it if it isn’t released.

·         Longitudinal studies – Best Practices Leap of Faith – this happens if you do this

Need to stop – will need to continue to go through and hit the areas as strategically as we possibly can.

Respectfully submitted,

Shaine Schramling

Secretary
If there are corrections, please e-mail Shaine Schramling (shaines@nwinet.com)