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Community Talk
Hosted by:
More Than An Athlete
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
We felt it was vital to our community to have a call to action regarding substance misuse and underage drinking prevention and raise other concerns related to the issues. We wanted to provide an opportunity for youth and the community to talk and learn about prevention so that we could continue to encourage healthy choices and mitigate consequences from substance use and underage drinking.
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Lack of interest from the community
- Unforeseen difficulties when planning our activity
How did you overcome these challenges?
We learned that it’s important to stay on track and not to lose focus of your goals when hosting events. It’s also vital to coordinate with partners as early as possible. Staying on schedule and executing our event allowed us to provide this important prevention resource to our community.
What are your next steps?
- Expand our coalition with new partnerships in the community
- Support new prevention policies, legislation, or social ordinances
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- Communities Talk website
- Communities Talk e-Alerts
How did a Communities Talk event help you address those issues?
- Educated youth and parents
- Built community cohesiveness and support for our efforts
- Created an opportunity to share resources and practices with other community stakeholders
- Helped plan future prevention efforts
- Made making good health behavior choices fun and engaging
- Raised awareness of substance abuse and/or underage drinking issues in our community
How did your event make an impact on underage drinking in your community?
We partnered with a member from the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees to host our event for youth ages of 15 to 18. We had two guest speakers participate, both of whom were in recovery from substance use.
We were successful in getting law enforcement, school administration, and local business owners to participate in our Communities Talk event. The majority of the youth and young adults who attended were fully engaged in the town hall, and we had a guest speaker who told real life stories related to the consequences of substance misuse. Youth left with a positive message; their perspectives changed after hearing people who they can relate to share their personal experiences with alcohol misuse.
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