Coalition Strives To Keep Our Community Healthy

DAYTON - In December, Dayton High School student Carlos Oribio, on behalf of his school's Students Helping Each Other club, told the Dayton City Council he was concerned about his peers' attitudes toward alcohol.

Oribio and the club are not the only ones concerned. In fact, Columbia County has an entire group of volunteers who are on the same page with Oribio and are working to alter the community and focus on raising healthy kids who will say no to drugs and alcohol.

The Columbia County Coalition for Youth and Families have been working to address youth substance abuse in the county since 2009, said Rea Culwell, the county prosecutor. Culwell and about 20 volunteers meet every third Thursday of the month in the Delany Building to talk about what they can do to reach out to the community.

"What the coalition is really trying to do is to change the environment in our community to provide a healthy life for our kids," Culwell said.

The goals of the groups are to first establish and strengthen collaboration among the coalition's partner organizations in support of the community's effort to prevent and reduce substance abuse by youths in the area. Those partners are local teens, schools, businesses, government, parents, substance abuse prevention groups, mental health groups, health care professionals, the health department, local media, youth-serving organizations, law enforcement, religious organizations and civic and volunteer groups.

Second, the group focuses on reducing substance abuse in not only children, but also in adults over time by addressing issues that increase the risk of substance abuse and minimize those factors, Culwell said.

When Oribio made his presentation to the council, he described two surveys of Dayton High School students related to alcohol consumption. He explained the survey shows many students are drinking alcohol, even binge drinking, and many think it's easy to obtain alcohol.

Culwell said some residents in Columbia County believe that underage drinking is an acceptable rite of passage and a normal part of growing up. Also, the coalition has learned alcohol and marijuana use is not perceived as risky by county youth, despite all of the studies proving youth alcohol and drug problems cause serious health and non-health related problems.

" We bel ieve we can change our environment through education about the harms of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs; promoting, praising, and giving voice to those parents and adults of youth who recognize the harm of underage drinking and illegal drug use," Culwell said.

Not only is the group working on prosecution, promoting healthy behavior and setting up new governmental policies to help protect youth from substance abuse, it has the hard task of working to change how our culture views drugs and alcohol.

"We know we aren't able to do this overnight, but we have made great strides already and hopefully within the next few years, our work will continue and our community will change for the better," she said.

The coalition has been very active in the community. It created the Everyday Hero program, and participated in an alcohol town meeting, National Night Out, Community Youth Drawl the Line Campaign, summer recreation program, senior projects, junior internships, established and trained a natural helper for the SHEO club at local schools, supported and attended the Prevention Summit with six DHS students, freshman retreat and hosted educational programs and meetings to use guest speakers and new information to educate the community.

The group is working on community-wide policies that address underage drinking and drug use, reaching out to the community to get more residents involved and again applying for a Drug Free Communities grant that would provide $1.5 million over 10 years.

Culwell stressed that the group does not believe the residents in the county are bad or raising their children poorly. She said the group was not created to declare substance abuse in youth problematic and tell the community how to fix it.

" We simply know the stats in our county and have tried to identify the reasons for the high rates of alcohol and drug use by our youth," she said. "The vast majority of our community is healthy, happy and productive and we don't want to forget that. We want to use the good in our community to help those who are not as fortunate, are at risk and who want education and a good life for our community."

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