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Digital Storytelling Helps Lake County Youth and Families Address Underage Drinking

Lake County Build a Generation (LCBAG)
Lake County, Colorado

INTRODUCTION

Lake County, Colorado, is a rural county that sits at a high elevation of 10,152 feet and has a small population of roughly 7,300 residents. A 2013 report prepared by Lake County Build a Generation (LCBAG), a community-based organization that works to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for Lake County youth and communities, described alcohol as the drug of choice among county youth. Data in the report indicated that the past 30-day drinking levels among Lake County students were “consistently above national averages.” Despite the challenges of getting rural residents to attend public meetings, LCBAG has found the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Town Hall Meetings initiative to be an effective tool to mobilize youth and the community to work toward prevention solutions, particularly those coupled with SAMHSA’s Communities That Care model and other youth-based approaches. LCBAG is also the “backbone agency” for the Lake County Youth Master Plan Coalition, which helps the community, its youth, and its agencies collaborate to transform and improve the support network for families and young people.

EVENT DESCRIPTION

In planning their Town Hall Meeting, LCBAG and the Lake County Youth Master Plan Coalition assigned high school researchers a key role by engaging them in leading the conversation. The April 29, 2014, meeting, “Raising Youth in an Age of Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll: Taking an Active Approach,” was publicized through flyers and included door prizes, refreshments, free parking, and childcare.

LCBAG uses youth participatory action research to engage youth, employing techniques such as photovoice and digital storytelling, along with traditional research strategies such as focus groups or surveys. Photovoice combines still and video photography with grassroots social action in public health to present participants’ impressions of their environment. Digital storytelling is a way of discussing health or social issues through first-person narratives that may incorporate video, images, music, narration, and text. Youth researchers greeted audience members in a café-style exhibit area, using video presentations on tablets and a captioned photovoice display. The photovoice display included information about the recent deaths of two students in an alcohol-impaired driving crash, and offered an opportunity for the students to discuss their perceptions of the problem. Approximately 66 percent of students at Lake County High School identify as Hispanic/Latino, and 40 percent of the county population overall identifies as Hispanic/Latino. With this in mind, solution-oriented presentations were given in English and Spanish. For example, the executive director and the coordinator of Latino services of LCBAG’s partner organization, Full Circle of Lake County, discussed how parents, teachers, and others can use positive youth development principles to promote healthy lifestyles for Lake County youth.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

For LCBAG and the Youth Master Plan Coalition, a valuable outcome of the event was the demonstrated strength of the youth-adult partnership strategy. Adults reported that the youth presentations about underage drinking and community norms were the most compelling component. After the Town Hall Meeting, LCBAG partnered with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to provide several youth-adult partnership trainings to agencies in Lake County. These trainings were well-attended and have encouraged other local youth-serving agencies to pilot youth research projects, hire interns, and add youth representatives to their boards. Moreover, LCBAG subsequently hired its own youth organizer and several youth interns. The youth organizer trains interns in youth participatory action research techniques and coaches them to use this research in policy advocacy, systems change, and social marketing to create a healthy environment for youth in Lake County.

NEXT STEPS

LCBAG intends to add its youth and ongoing adult research regarding underage drinking and other health and behavioral health issues to its website. Moving forward, LCBAG and the Youth Master Plan Coalition will continue to work with youth interns to identify policy or systems change solutions to lower Lake County’s rate of underage drinking.

CONTACT

Katie Baldassar
katie@lcbag.org
(719) 486-4114


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