Creating healthy communities

Two recent opinion pieces in the Seattle Times brought to mind what it means to live in a healthy community.

A mission to promote health and wellness -- a great example of a Seattle community coming together to "reduce chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes in children and youth through obesity prevention."

For city well being, money is not everything -- describes how strong communities are those that "build residents' attachment". This idea compliments the social development strategy that guides Prevention WINS -- if teenagers feel a sense of attachment to our community, their schools, and their families they are more likely to have healthy behaviors.

FOCUS provides update about prevention around the state

I wish I had posted the August edition of FOCUS earlier because it contains a lot of good information about what is happening around our state. For instance:

-- The state's substance abuse and mental health services divisions are now integrated to become the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery (DBHR). Behavioral health is a term being widely used in the field to identify a holistic approach to treating mental, substance abuse, and gambling disorders.

-- DBHR is developing a plan to redesign its current service delivery system to a community-base model beginning July 1, 2010. The new system will be designed to focus prevention and early intervention services to have a greater impact on reducing community-level substance abuse.

-- The new Healthy Youth Survey website -- www.AskHYS.net -- is up and running and designed to make access to data from the survey much easier.

-- Page six is dedicated to information about efforts around the state having to do with reducing underage drinking. It includes a farewell to Roger Hoen who left the Liquor Control Board this year. He was a great advocate for prevention while serving on the board.

-- Page seven contains a very informative story about Party Intervention Patrols in Pierce County. Unfortunately, funding for similar programs in Seattle and King County has gone away.

Research behind community-based prevention

I was going through some old files this morning and came across the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Preventing Drug Use Among Children & Adolescents: A Research-Based Guide for Parents, Educators, and Community Leaders aka The Red Book. Though it was last updated in 2003, it is still relevant today. It provides a great overview of community-based prevention including the risk and protective factors model and prevention principles. The research behind the process our coalition has gone through to create and implement a community prevention action plan is well explained in this guide.