Drug free coalition meets to discuss vision and mission statements

COSHOCTON – The Coshocton County Drug Free Coalition has a vision to make Coshocton County a safe and healthy community free of substance abuse.

That vision statement was worked on during a Sept. 13 meeting attended by 18 coalition members who also discussed the group’s mission statement. After much discussion that mission statement was fine tuned to be, “Coshocton County Drug Free Coalition will strive to unite the community to free Coshocton County from substance abuse.”

Leane Rohr, who is from the Family Children First Council and is heading up the coalition, said now that they have a vision statement and mission statement they can start working on an action plan that includes goals and programs to help them work toward their vision.

The Coshocton County Drug Free Coalition was formed by Coshocton Behavioral Health Choices (CBHC) and the Family Children First Council who worked together to get an $80,000 Partnership for Success grant designed to help rural counties tackle underage drinking among individuals ages 12-20 and prescription drug abuse among individuals ages 12-25. The local group’s priority problem will be prescription drug misuses. According to a 2013/2014 Youth and Collaborative Institute Survey, 9.1 percent of Coshocton County youth in middle and high school have misused prescription drugs in the past 30 days, which is over the national average of 2.4 percent.

Another step the coalition took was conducting a community readiness assessment to gage how ready the community is to admit there is problem and prepared to take action on issues that affect the health and well-being of the community. In order to collect this data Rohr conducted interviews with a variety of people from areas of the community that included mental health counseling, government officials, the sheriff’s office and even the hospital. These interviews revealed that Coshocton is in a vague awareness stage of readiness.

Now that the coalition knows this, Kathy Carter-Robbins, director of curriculum and learning for Coshocton City Schools and a member of the coalition, suggested they start identifying groups they can speak with to raise awareness about issues in the community and how everyone can work together to stop substance abuse. She also noted that they need to find the root cause of why substance abuse starts.

“We need to work on the mental health needs of our community,” Carter-Robbins said. “What social or emotional issues led them to substance abuse? What’s going on in their lives? What are the root issues of the symptoms we are seeing?”

For more information on the group and how you can become involved, contact Rohr at the Family Children First Council at 740-295-7311 or Beth Cormack at Coshocton Behavioral Health Choices at 740-622-0033 ext. 103.

“If you are already doing something for the good of the cause that’s great, but we really want to start consolidating efforts in the community,” Rohr said.

Jeanette Hall from CBHC also was impressed with the group’s enthusiasm for working together toward a drug free community.

“There were a lot of different voices here today and I think that makes us counselors feel good to know we are not alone,” she said.

Category: People & Places