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Hope and Beyond Mental Health Matters
Hosted by:
Tigard Turns the Tide Coalition
Please briefly describe your Communities Talk activity.
In recognition of Red Ribbon Week, Hope and Beyond-Mental Health Matters was created to be a community-wide webinar held on October 26, 2021. The event was planned by our Stop Tigard Underage Drinking and Drug Use (STUDD) students . The students identified the need to address mental health and wellness due to an increase in drinking and drug use as a coping mechanism during the pandemic. We set several goals for our activities:
Address mental health and substance use awareness
Build a safe school environment where everyone feels welcome
Educate and raise awareness concerning use of alcohol, marijuana, and vaping and other drugs/Help students understand how to cope with stress and anxiety
Decrease stigma around mental health/Build support system for all students and help reduce alcohol and drug use
In addition, Tigard Turns the Tide Coalition provided resources and educational materials including prevention videos featuring Dr. Amy Stoebe, a clinical child and adolescent psychologist. The project was introduced to the school’s health classes. Some students created posters which were placed around the school. And, the STUDD students created a social media campaign.
Links: Videos by students: http://www.tigardturnsthetide.org/hope-and-beyond and webinar presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6EAd6TBiiI
Success story link: https://www.stopalcoholabuse.gov/communitiestalk/successstories/sstorydetails.aspx?sstory=26945
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
What goal(s) did you hope to accomplish with your Communities Talk activity?
- Reduce prevalence of underage drinking and other substances in community
- Create an ongoing conversation about underage drinking and substance use prevention in the community
- Foster collaboration between community stakeholders for continued underage drinking and substance use prevention activities
- Create new resources/materials (e.g., publications, handouts, factsheets, videos, graphics) to support prevention of underage drinking and misuse of other substances
- Improve policy/legislation (e.g., reducing alcohol advertising to which youth are exposed; instituting, promoting, or increasing alcohol compliance checks; improving
- Awareness and enforcement of social host laws) to support prevention of underage drinking
- Encourage community and local businesses to implement measures to prevent underage drinking (e.g., restricting or decreasing sales of alcohol at community events; conducting responsible beverage service training)
- Work closely with the Tigard Police Department to enforce underage drinking laws.
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Unforeseen difficulties when planning our activity
- Adapting to conducting a virtual activity
- Change in organizational structure or staff
What are your next steps?
- Host follow-up meetings or activities
- Support new prevention policies, legislation, or social ordinances
- Create a public education campaign to raise awareness and/or change behaviors around underage drinking (i.e., create PSAs and other promotional materials)
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- Prevention-related webinars
- StopAlcoholAbuse.gov website
- Communities Talk website
- Communities Talk planning guides
- Communities Talk toolkits
- Communities Talk social media content (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
- Communities Talk support staff
Who did you involve in your activity planning, and who did your activity impact?
This activity was youth driven as explained in the description of the activity. We did involve school administrators, leaders and staff, parents, city and county government, Tigard Turns the Tide Coalition leaders, parents, business owners, Tigard Police Dept., and the community at-large.
Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the planning or execution of your activities?
Because of Covid, we had to limit our in person opportunities. We worked around it by meeting at the park and in open spaces outside to plan and film our videos. We held several zoom meetings with students in the evening and on the weekend to do the planning. We also did our webinar on line with the help of the Tigard-Tualatin School District so that we could increase the attendance.
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