Care Coalition Updates Community

The Valley County Care Coalition has taken their mission over the past year to heart. As the world faced a pandemic, the health issues that face Valley County have not faded away and the coalition has pushed programs, events and support for issues like substance abuse, mental health, fitness and nutrition and, looking forward, youth needs and even a youth coalition.

In 2019, Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital conducted a community needs assessment survey and identified a number of public health concerns from the county’s residents. At that time, the Valley County Care Coalition began prioritizing those concerns and setting up programs to address issues. In 2020, thanks to help from Americorps volunteers the coalition charged ahead in 2020.

“So, we’re addressing things like mental health/behavioral health in the community; physical fitness and nutrition; and then substance abuse,” said Care Coalition president Katrena Palmer who also works for Eastern Montana Community Mental Health.

As a means of assessing progress, hearing concerns and planning for the future, the group held a community meeting on March 23. At the meeting a number of topics were discussed. The coalition went over the success of programs like the senior-youth pen pals, the “Stories from the Strong” program where writers anonymously discuss their battles with mental health for publication in the Courier once a month.

“So, I think we got a lot of positive feedback on the hope that comes from reading other peoples’ stories, and the healing that comes from being able to write their own stories,” said coalition secretary Taylor Zerbe. To make an entry anyone can go to the care coalition website to make an anonymous entry.

The coalition’s top priority coming out of the meeting is the establishment of a “youth coalition” explained Palmer. In essence, the Care Coalition is hoping to set up a multicultural group of youth in the community that could represent “all walks of life” and report youth needs back to the Care Coalition.

“It was identified that the youth in the community did not have a voice according to that youth needs assessment,” explained Palmer. “so, we really lobbied in 2020 to get more youth involvement and that’s how the youth needs assessment came about.”

Community training has also been a huge part of the coalitions mission in 2020. Using the radio and other mediums, the coalition has offered training on topics as varied as suicide prevention and substance abuse prevention. Specifically, the group has focused on spreading the suicide prevention training known as QPR—or question, persuade, refer indicating the steps to take to recognize and prevent suicide.

The coalition is offering the training to area businesses and organizations. Already the training has been given to law enforcement, emergency services, mental health experts and others in public service, but they hope to train as wide of variety as possible across Valley County. The coalition was able to receive a grant to train Connie Whethern and Alissa Kuka to become trainers in QRP, and they are able to offer the program free to the community.

Another step in the suicide prevention program is offering age-oriented training to middle and high school students in area schools. Currently classes are offered at Glasgow Middle and High Schools, but Palmer said the hope is to update and improve those trainings and then offer them to the schools in Hinsdale, Nashua and Opheim.

To address substance abuse in the community, Palmer said efforts are underway to address the issues. One such method is through alcohol awareness outreach through ads in the newspaper bringing educational opportunities to the community. The coalition has worked to support ID checks with law enforcement at businesses that sell alcohol. And they’ve worked to push the “gray area project” said Zerbe.

Zerbe explained that the gray area program is an effort to break down barriers for medical providers and first responders to refer patients with substance abuse disorders or warning signs to treatment in the community or follow up and even schedule treatment. In short, it allows treatment providers and first responders to use whatever means possible to refer and acquire help for substance abuse patients.

“[It’s] whatever way you can kind of facilitate that person getting help,” said Zerbe, “and I don’t think there’s that person to facilitate that. You get admitted to the hospital and then you get forgotten about after that.”

Palmer agreed, and added that even though local agencies like FMDH, mental health, Youth Dynamics and Hi-Lin Homes are passionate about treating and caring for patients, there is still a drop off in communication. That makes the Gray Area Project important because it gives those “in the field” a means to directly refer individuals to a treatment provider.

“It addresses different referrals to streamline the process so everybody can be on the same page,” explained Palmer.

The community meeting also highlighted a need to push for more programs addressing physical needs and nutrition in the community. Palmer said the topic will be discussed at the April coalition meeting.

“We’re going to sit down and talk a little bit about [physical activity and nutrition] and choose one of those topics from the community meeting to address,” said Palmer. Some of the ideas discussed included a community garden to support the food bank, a walking path and guide for the community, and an activity guide for year-round activities for various levels of physical fitness.

Zerbe said she hopes to produce and publish a resource guide for physical activity on the coalition’s website. That would offer community members a comprehensive guide to find workout groups, gyms, programs and even workout partners in Valley County.

The coalition has many plans in the works for the future. To contact the Valley County Care Coalition about training or to lend support, you can message them on Facebook or go to their website at valleycarecoalition.com.