III. Speaker Two:Brooke Sterns, CCI

Brooke Sterns of CCI recently attended a Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) training in Texas. CADCA is a membership organization representing over 5,000 coalitions worldwide “working to make communities safe, healthy and drug-free.”

Brooke explained what she learned and how the training can strengthen work with communities. HCC received DPBH funding to send about a dozen representatives from CCI, Lyon County Human Services, and Lyon County School District to the Mid-Year CADCA training, alongside Healthy Communities employees.

Brooke is a Safe School Professional and CHW with CCI based in Mineral County. She feels passionate about rolling out the Sustance Free Athletics in Mineral and also another program called Prevent Ed (early Prevention Education), both of which she learned about at the CADCA training. She also appreciated the CADCA session on strategies for “getting unstuck” using sparks and noting things such as: what can be replicated; struggles, what should we be mindful of; strengths; resources that are already in place; supports; who do we have and who do we need; etc.

Brook also particularly liked an initiative called Operation Parent that she learned about at CADCA.

Wendy Madson, HCC ED, who also attended the CADCA training, comments on CADCA training:

Incredible resources; lots of training; realized how incredible the work so many are doing is; much gratitude for those of you who “are in deep in the weeds” of the work.

Wendy noted that this work is “not for the faint hearted; it is intense work.”

Wendy stressed that one major takeaway from the training was to “make prevention obvious.” She noted that one of the best parts included observing groups that brought their youth teams to the international training.

After seeing Stand Tall teams from other states there, HCC staff decided to reinvigorate HCC’s own Stand Tall teams.

Lisa Selmi, HCC’s Deputy director, noted her takeaways:

She liked the saying, “plant trees for fruit you may never see” and noted that communicating coalition work includes realizing “we are made of stories.” She said we live in silos, and that’s one reason HCC, a collaborative impact organization, wants to help share partners’ events, etc. more.