Youth Healthy Communities Healthy Youth Coalition members at the January meeting included Holly Mazurkiewicz, Morgan Jansen, Youth Mobilizer Lauren Calnin, Megan Weishaar, and Taylor Krueger. If you want to join the HCHY coalition to help shape a healthy Marquette County and reduce drug and alcohol abuse and violence, you are invited to attend a coalition meeting. Go to www.marquettehchy.org or call Meg McCullough at (608) 297-2126, ext. 166. (Photo by Kathleen McGwin)

Healthy Communities Healthy Youth looks forward to 2012

By Kathleen McGwin
The Healthy Communities Healthy Youth (HCHY) Coalition members reviewed the mission and shared information about the activities of the coalition members at the start of the new year. HCHY’s mission is to reduce and prevent substance abuse and violence in Marquette County through positive cultural change. The coalition meets every second Tuesday at 11:30 AM in Montello and invites anyone interested in becoming involved in making Marquette County a healthier community by reducing the abuse of alcohol and drugs to attend. Call Meg McCullough, Coordinator at (608) 297-2126, ext. 166 to confirm the meeting place.

HCHY is an initiative that was launched in 1996 by The Search Institute in Minnesota. The Search Institute is a 50-year-old independent non-profit, non-sectarian organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. Its focus over its history had been to collect data and information about youth and communities and use this to develop programs, curriculums, and training that help others build healthy communities that support children and youth.

Marquette County received its first grant for the HCHY coalition in 2005. After five years of providing services in Marquette County demonstrated a reduction in the use of drugs and alcohol by youth, the Healthy Communities Healthy Youth coalition was awarded a second five grant in 2010. Sue Allen, Family Living Educator initiated and wrote the first grant and she and Trish Beckett, former HCHY Coordinator, wrote the extensive second grant application with the assistance of Carol Roth of Starfish Consulting.

In total, 170 of these 2010 Drug Free Community grants were awarded in the present five-year cycle. There were seven initiatives awarded the grant in Wisconsin. Westfield School District is the fiduciary agent for the HCHY grant. Other grants awarded in Wisconsin include Lac du Flambeau, Rusk County, Sheboygan County, Racine County, Monroe County, and Washington County. The Drug-Free Community federal grant levels the playing field for a small, rural county like Marquette where resources that can lower the risks of youth alcohol and drug use are often not as available as they may be in larger, more urban areas.

The competitive federal grant provides $125,000 the first year with the HCHY coalition providing matching funds with volunteer hours, office space, and other in-kind donated services and supplies.

The Healthy Communities Healthy Youth initiatives are based on building developmental assets in youth. Developmental assets are what children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible and successful adults. The Search Institute has, through longitudinal research done with studies and surveys over time, identified a core set of assets that, if enhanced in a young person’s life, will increase chances of successful and healthy adulthood.

These assets include both external, or community and family assets, and internal, personal, assets. External assets are family support, positive family communication, other adult relationships, caring neighborhood, caring school climate, parent involvement in schooling, a community that values youth, youth used as resources in the community, youth serving the community, safety, family rules and supervision, school rules and consequences, neighborhood responsibility and monitoring, adult role models, positive peer influence, high expectations, creative activity participation, involvement in youth programs, religious community involvement, and spending time at home.

Internal assets for youth are achievement and motivation, school engagement, homework, bonding to school, reading for pleasure, caring about others, valuing equality and social justice, integrity, honesty, responsibility, restraint, planning and decision making, interpersonal competence, cultural competence, resistance to negative peer pressure and dangerous situations, peaceful conflict resolution skills, feelings of personal power, self-esteem, sense of purpose, and a positive view of a personal future.

The Search Institute uses surveys of youth and other data to discover what can increase the likelihood of success. The extensive research shows that building developmental assets in communities and youth promotes academic success, diverts youth from risky behaviors like drugs and alcohol, increases civic engagement, and gives youth what they need to make positive choices in life. Unfortunately, the research also shows that most youth in the United States now experience fewer than half of the identified developmental assets.

Healthy Communities Healthy Youth of Marquette County then, works to promote and build these developmental assets in the youth and the communities throughout the county. The Healthy Communities Healthy Youth team is lead by Meg McCullough. HCHY neighborhood liaisons are Whitni Kral in Montello, Jamie Flores in Neshkoro and Sandy Vogel in Oxford/Westfield. Laura Calnin is the Youth Mobilizer and Cathy Duesterhoeft is an AmeriCorps Volunteer. All positions are part time and paid for with HCHY grant funding. Coalition officers are Chairman, Jeremy Kral, Chairperson Elect, Christa Van Treeck, Secretary Stacy Oliphant and Treasurer Janelle Krueger.

Assets keep building up in Marquette County communities and youth because of adults and organizations that support healthy community activities. Healthy Communities and Healthy Youth of Marquette County is focused on promoting and building positive assets. So when you see or hear Healthy Communities Healthy Youth or HCHY, you’ll know it means another positive asset for Marquette County.
To learn more, go to www.marquettehchy.org.