By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
Mental Health First Aid training was the top item on a wishlist of services for Moapa Valley to focus upon over the next year. Shortly behind that came resiliency training and coping skills for youth, respite care, and securing more anxiety/depression counseling resources in the community.
These top four items, and many more ideas, came up during a community listening session in Overton, put on by members of the PACT Coalition on Tuesday, Nov. 9. About 30 local residents were in attendance to participate in the session.
PACT, which stands for Prevention, Advocacy, Choices, Teamwork, was formed as a regional nonprofit in 2010 to address substance misuse in communities throughout the region.
PACT Executive Director Jamie Ross told attendees at the meeting that PACT is offered as a “neutral convening table” that brings together various stakeholders in identifying needs and then brings resource to bear to address those needs. This is the definition of a “coalition model,” Ross said.
“It is really a group of people who come together, and continue with their individual interests and identities, to understand that they are here to work as a whole and to connect to community resources,” Ross said. “Because as we all work together so much more can get done.”
Ross acknowledged that this idea of coalition usually comes as second nature to small town residents who are used to working together. “I know in a small town that is more true than it is anywhere else,” she said. “You guys are the ongoing proof that the coalition model really does work.”
Ross said that the primary focus of PACT is on the problem of substance misuse. But she emphasized that this problem extends itself to many different core facets of a community.
“When dealing with preventing substance misuse, we are not talking about drugs at all,” she said. “We are talking about how to make our community safer. Do kids feel like they can talk to an adult in their community? Do adults feel like they have somewhere to turn? Because if all of these things are in the right place, then substance use numbers tend to go down.”
Novlette Mack, also of PACT, talked about ways that the coalition has already been involved in working with stakeholders in Moapa Valley in the recent past. She talked about how PACT brought grant funding to help put on the MVHS graduation ceremonies at the Logandale Ballfields in May. They also provided a matching grant to bring renown suicide prevention speaker Kevin Hines to the community in September for the Mental Health Fair. PACT funding has also helped with high school dances, outdoor movie nights, sober graduation parties, parenting classes through the justice court and more.
Mack said that much of these successes were due to a strong partnership with community stakeholders who were willing to do the groundwork.
“We have had a lot of strong partners here over the past year,” Mack said. “We want to thank you guys for doing all the work. That is the way it is supposed to work: we write the checks and you do the work in the community.”
In the next hour, Ross led a brainstorming session on priority areas of focus for the next year in Moapa Valley. Each attendee was asked for input in various ways.
In the end, three main areas of focus came to the fore. First was a focus on mental health and drug prevention. Second was a focus on community schools and youth. Thirdly was on addressing food insecurity in the community.
More brainstorming among the group yielded a long list of important resources in each of these categories that are needed in the Moapa Valley community.
This list was written on large poster paper and posted on the walls of the room at the Overton Community Center. Then attendees were given three colored adhesive dots and asked to place these on the items that they felt were the top three local priorities.
Mental Health First Aid training received the most colored dots on the poster. This training, which focuses on spotting signs of mental illness and knowing what to do about them, is given by certified instructors to one or two volunteers in a community. It is an extensive course taking a significant amount of time for those individuals. Then the newly trained experts bring the knowledge back home and train other youth and adults on employing the techniques in the community.
“That is a hard one to get started on,” Ross said. “It is a pretty heavy lift. But if you have people willing to do it, we can definitely look at helping with it.”
Other listed items (in addition to the four most popular already listed) included elementary school-level drug prevention programs, a help line resource for youth, a broader JAG program at MVHS, first responder Explorer scout training programs, prevention of youth vaping and underage drinking, pornography awareness and more.
Ross said that she was pleased with the wishlist of items. She said that her team would work through these results and come back with a more detailed report to present to the group on how to move forward in Moapa Valley.
“This is how we work,” Ross said. “You tell us what you need and we work on getting resources to do it.”
Earlier in the meeting the local Teen Leadership Corps (TLC) group, composed of local high school and middle school volunteers organized under the 4H, gave a presentation about their upcoming plans.
This group, which provided much of the planning and the volunteer workforce for the Moapa Valley Mental Health Resource Fair in September, has turned its focus to another growing problem among youth: the effects of pornography.
TLC members said that they are working on bringing an anti-pornography group called “Fight the New Drug” to present to local youth.
“Fight the New Drug” was founded in 2009 by university students in Utah as a non-religious and non-legislative organization.
“It raises awareness to the harmful and addictive social and personal effects of pornography,” explained TLC member Shaylee Adams, an MVHS junior.
The TLC group presented a plan to do a series of fundraisers in the community to raise $3,000 to bring “Fight the New Drug” to Moapa Valley youth. Keep an eye on The Progress for more information about the upcoming fundraising events.
