The Clallam County Prevention Summit was a gathering collaboratively created by WSU Extension Clallam County’s 4-H and Youth Empowerment Coordinator, Melanie Greer and our three local Community Prevention & Wellness Initiative Coalitions or CPWIs.
The three coalitions in attendance were the Port Angeles Healthy Youth Coalition, Crescent United Coalition, and Forks Community Coalition. CPWI’s are funded by the Washington State Health Care Authority to address youth needs as determined by the WA State Healthy Youth Survey.
The coalitions deliver evidence based programming including drug take back events and parent education. They also provide financial help to send youth prevention club members to prevention conferences throughout the country. Coalitions work closely with the Student Assistance Professionals in schools to ensure that youth voice is central to the coalition’s yearly tasks. The Student Assistance Professionals are who organize the prevention clubs within their schools. The Clallam County Prevention Summit invited youth from the in-school prevention clubs at Port Angeles High and Middle, Seaview Academy, Crescent High and Middle, and Forks High and Middle, as well as the Joyce Hope Squad, who focus on suicide prevention.
Clallam County 4-H receives funds from the Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program each year which Melanie uses to implement marijuana prevention primarily through Youth Empowerment, or elevating youth voice to decision makers.
Annually each CPWI coalition is required to host a key leader event, where key leaders in the community come together to learn about what these youth coalitions are doing and how the community can be in support.
This year was the first time that multiple groups decided to collaborate and hold the event together calling it the Clallam County Prevention Summit. When the groups were talking about their invite lists, they realized there were so many key leaders shared, that it only made sense to hold it jointly and add a youth empowerment piece to the agenda. The event took place at the Clallam County Fairgrounds on May 17th.
Invited key community leaders included local policy makers, police, fire departments, nonprofits active in youth and families, other government organizations that work in the youth/family space, superintendents, and school boards. Leaders were invited to learn about what is happening in prevention and to provide the opportunity for them to help promote prevention and wellness.
The event ran from 4pm – 6pm. The first hour all the adults met in one room, while the youth meet in another. You see these coalitions have not been together prior. The youth collaboratively discussed what needed to be shared with the leaders with the support of Melanie Greer, 4-H and Youth Empowerment Coordinator as the moderator. Meanwhile the adults were learning about the new Handle With Care initiative, A.C.E.S., and what the CPWIs have been working on and plan to work on in the next year
Then at 5:00 the youth came to the stage and began sharing about what they see in school, and out of school, that is concerning, what are they are doing about it, what they want to change to feel safer, and what they would like to see from the community.
Here are some of the questions Melanie asked and answers from the youth participants:
Q: What are you seeing in your community regarding youth that is a problem and needs to be fixed?
A.: “Lot of kids are struggling mentally and there are too many taboo subjects around mental health that all should be more talked about. Teenagers are scared to talk about mental health, so having parents and adults in general know how to talk about these subjects is really helpful.”
A: “One of the problems is how many kids bring blankets to cover up when they are vaping. If we could say no blankets in bathrooms, there would be less vaping.” This answer stems from vape detectors in bathrooms which can be bypassed by covering it with a blanket.
A: “Give teachers training about how to support kids’ mental health is a suggestion, and then give the kid who is struggling contacts of who else can help them.”
Q: How can we reduce the use of vapes?
A: “Kids do it wanting to belong, maybe having more opportunities to have social scenes that are in public.”
A: “Having a place like Planned Parenthood that is a community resource, but have it for mental health, where you can go and ask questions and get support with mental health and substance abuse.”
A: “Vaping can come from parents or older siblings; kids are asking adults to buy them alcohol and vapes. I recently witnessed a group of high schoolers that got adults buying them vapes. Educate the parents on how much it effects the child, the body and health.”
Then there was a unanimous vote that parents need more education about substance abuse.
Another important suggestion included teaching adults and youth how to approach someone who seems to be struggling. A few in the group shared the importance of having teachers that know how to talk to youth about their struggles.
The Joyce Schools has a “Hope Squad” that practices peer support and members have been trained in Q.P.R. suicide prevention. Through role playing they learn how to communicate with someone who is not doing well and how to recognize the signs to detect that. This has given them skills and practice so they can be of support to their peers. Training youth to help uphold the rules amongst their peers was another suggestion they shared.
A repeated message was about adults being open and honest, having open conversations with youth, having open conversations with counselors and the importance for adults to not minimize youth concerns by telling stories of how the adult “had to walk up hill each way” growing up. They shared the idea of alternatives to punishment, “let’s talk about why this is happening and how to move forward.” The importance of adults being non-judgement was a suggestion that kept coming back around from the group.
It was suggested that kids aren’t the only ones who are struggling with mental health concerns. Youth are seeing that many adults in the community are “going through the motions” and have “lost the joy of life.” When asked, “are you saying adults need to work on their own mental health?” The answer was a definite YES.
The conversation led to having more positive social activities for youth as a way to create support and belonging. Some suggestions included having a hangout place for kids, a kids-only place, having soccer, sports, and horses were noted. A Quileute Tribe representative in attendance shared that they were putting together a youth calendar and asked the group what a barrier would be to participate in social activities, and transportation was a definite need for the youth.
The audience listened eagerly to hear the challenges, good work of the youth and the visions for doing better. The audience also asked compelling questions to deepen understanding. The Summit ended on a high note with plenty of ideas for how to improve it for next year, so we can continue to discuss these important topics of how we care for youth with mental health struggles and substance abuse. Hearing the voices of the youth was impactful and the conversation will continue. Keep an eye out for next year’s Olympic Peninsula Prevention Summit.