Positive community norms

Jeff Linkenbach from Montana State University gave the opening plenary and provided a workshop about the Positive Community Norms Model for prevention during the DFC New Grantee Training last week. Below I touch on a few of the ideas he shared.

At the beginning of both sessions, Dr. Linkenbach asked everyone, "Are we busy or are we effective?" Are we changing our communities or are we transforming them?

He talked about prevention as an act of leadership and presented seven core actions of positive leadership:

Be positive

Be present

Be perceptive

Be purposeful

Be perfected (learn from mistakes and share what was learned)

Be proactive

Be passionate.

Dr. Linkenbach is well-known for the Most of Us campaigns using the Positive Community Norms Model. A message that these campaigns promote is: most kids make healthy choices but exceptions do exist.

He also spoke about bringing together spirit, science, and action when communities work to reduce youth substance abuse. Together, they create synergy that can lead to community transformation.

He provided several examples of "spirit" and shared the following negative ad:

Though they are not videos for substance abuse prevention, he shared the following with us to provide examples of spirit:

Where is Matt? (as an example that good already exists in all of our communities)

Embrace Life

Substance abuse prevention ads using positive social norms may be viewed on the Most of Us website.

Environmental prevention: policy

Earlier today my blog topic was environmental prevention. During the DFC New Grantee Training, I attended a workshop about promoting policies that are proven to reduce youth substance abuse. Policy advocacy is considered an environmental prevention strategy.

The session started off with the question, "What policies (at what level?) can help make the population-level change you want to make in your community?" There are many settings within a community in which policy can make a difference.

When planning to advocate for policy change, it's important for coalition's to also ask themselves:

-- Is this winnable?

-- Is there energy behind it?

-- Is it worth the effort?

At least in the beginning of policy advocacy work, it is essential that coalition's find success to keep and build momentum.

The workshop went on to discuss different policies to address different factors contributing to youth substance abuse. Below are two factors present in northeast Seattle.

The last part of the workshop dealt with the steps to take when advocating for policy.

Policy advocacy is best when many voices are heard. A high level of support behind a policy is extremely important and it needs to be seen and recognized by the community and policy-makers.

The entire handout from the workshop if available on the coalition's website.

What is environmental prevention?

During the DFC New Grantee Training last week, we learned more about environmental prevention strategies.

Environmental strategies address the place, settings, occasions and circumstances in which alcohol and other drug use and/or sales occur. Over the last four years, the Prevention WINS coalition mostly worked on individually focused prevention programs like Life Skills Training and Guiding Good Choices.

The DFC grant requires that we focus on environmental strategies.

While the coalition's DFC strategies will focus on environmental prevention, we will continue to work with and support community organizations that offer individual prevention programs.

Copies of this presentation and others from the New Grantee Training are available on the coalition's website.