1 Ouray County Communities That Care Community Action Plan 3.0

Ouray County Communities that Care Community Action Plan 3.0 2016-2021

Introduction In 2016-2017, the Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE) received funding from the marijuana tax cash fund to support substance abuse prevention among youth using the Communities That Care (CTC) framework across Colorado. Communities That Care is a community-based prevention model that was evaluated across the country with significant results, including preventing youth substance use initiation and youth crime and violence. This model helps local communities assess the specific risk and protective factors among the youth in their communities. The communities then pick from a menu of effective, evidence-based programs and strategies to address the specific needs of local youth. For 2016-17, CDPHE received approximately $7,125,000, and for 2017-18, received approximately $9,000,000 to fund communities statewide.

In 2017, Ouray County Public Health (OCPH) was awarded a grant for $100,000 to implement CTC in Ouray County. Due to issues with capacity, they subcontracted with Voyager Youth Program to act as the backbone agency. OCPH is a critical partner as well as other agencies like Ouray County Schools, Law Enforcement, Government, Partners Mentoring, Juvenile Services, Bright Futures, Voyager, Marijuana Cultivators, Local Business Owners, Department of Social Services, Media, Faith Community, Parents, and Community Members. The mission for Ouray County CTC is that we are an evolving support system for Ouray County Youth, that provides opportunities for active involvement in promoting a healthy environment for themselves and others, assisting them in reaching their full potential, as competent, compassionate, responsible, and resilient adults.

This plan describes the ways to address the priority risk and protective factors identified in Ouray County’s Communities That Care effort. The Communities That Care system is a way for members of a community to work together to promote positive youth development. The system was developed by the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington. Their research has identified risk factors that predict youth problem behaviors and protective factors that buffer children from risk and help them succeed in life.

In 2017, a community board was formed that was diverse and representative of our community. The organizational structure was established by identifying leadership roles and forming workgroups. After board orientations, a plan was put in place to identify populations with high levels of risk and low levels of protection. Our community identified the risk and protective factors specific to our area. A community assessment report was completed, and the coalition began analyzing our community resources. The resource assessment report identified the youth serving organizations in Ouray County, what needs were already being filled and what gaps in service exist.

The identified Ouray County Risk Factors are: • Availability of Substances (Community level) • Favorable Attitudes Toward Substance Use (Individual)

The identified Ouray County Protective Factor is: • Opportunities and Recognition for Prosocial Involvement 3

The revised 2020 Community Action Plan is a demonstration of the time and energy that the community board and key leaders have invested into the communities that care process. Each step of the CTC process has brought our communities members closer by growing collaboration, sharing resources, and building capacity. This plan also helps to address the community needs of mental health, suicidal ideation, depression, and substance use by youth from the local community health assessment planning and improvement plan. The strategies that have been selected by the key leader and community board members are research-based and focus on policy, community outreach, and environmental change to address our risk and protective factors. This report covers the changes that we want to see in our community and how we’re going to get there.

Table of Contents Ouray County Communities That Care Community Collaboration………………………………5 Prevention Science Overview………………………………………………………………….….6 Positive Youth Development & Social Development Strategy in Ouray County………………...6 Community Action Plan……………………………………………………………………...…...7 Healthy Coalition Maintenance…………………………………………………………..……..7-8 Community Assessment: How the Information was Collected……………………...………….8-9 Selected Community-Level Strategies…………………………………………………….…..9-11 Strategy Outcome Goals……………………………………………………………………...11-12 Health and Behavior Outcome Goals……………………………………………………...…….12 Risk and Protective Factor Outcome Goals……………………………………………………...12 Collective Impact………………………………………………………………………………...13 Implementation and Evaluation Planning…………………………………………………….13-14 Funding………………………………………………………………………………..…………14 Recommendations for next steps…………………………………………………...………....…14 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….…15

Ouray County Communities that Care (OC-CTC) Ouray County Communities That Care envisions our community as an evolving support system for Ouray County youth, that provides opportunities for active involvement in promoting a healthy environment for themselves and others, assisting them in reaching their full potential as competent, compassionate, responsible, and resilient adults. Many of these agencies have allowed for staff members to utilize their time and energy to support our efforts to create systems that prevent youth substance use and violence, and to promote young people’s mental wellbeing. We also have community members and young people involved in our efforts, who provide their expertise and passion, as well as practical insights on addressing the needs of our young people. All of these partnerships are critical in leveraging community assets and resources needed to sustain our prevention efforts now and in the future. The following agencies contributed to the development of this plan, either by being a representative on a board or work group, and/or from contributing information that helped inform our community’s decision:

Ouray County Public Health Voyager Youth Program Ouray Police Department Bright Futures Ridgway Marshalls Office Partners Mentoring Youth Ouray County Sheriff’s Office Weehawken Creative Arts Ridgway School District Juvenile Services Ouray School District Chris Pet Grooming, LLC Ouray County Social Services Steps Bar Ouray County Young Life Rocky Mountain Cannabis Ridgway Christian Center Dalwhinnie/Shift United Church of the San Juan’s Flying Pig Ouray City Council Fiddlers Green Ouray County Board of County ACME Healing Commissioners Ridgway Town Administration

Prevention Science Overview In the spring of 2017, Ouray County began implementing the Communities That Care system. Communities That Care helps community members work together to efficiently and effectively promote the social development strategy and positive youth development. The system was developed by Dr. J. David Hawkins and Dr. Richard F. Catalano of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington, Seattle. It is based on their research, which has identified risk factors that predict youth problem behaviors and protective factors that buffer children from risk and help them succeed in life.

Positive Youth Development Positive Youth Development (PYD) is an approach that guides communities and organizations in the way that they organize services, opportunities and supports so that all young people can be engaged and reach their full potential. PYD incorporates the development of skills, opportunities and authentic relationships into programs, practices and policies so that young people reach their full potential. PYD views young people as resources to cultivate, as opposed to problems to fix, and is dependent upon the use of the following guiding principles: strengths-based approach, inclusive of all youth, engages youth as partners, collaborative and sustainable. Our PYD outcome goal is that youth will demonstrate more involvement in prosocial activities. There will be more cooperation and communication between youth-serving organizations, with shared PYD language and behavior. Ouray County CTC provides free quarterly PYD trainings to community members

Social Development Strategy The Social Development Strategy (SDS) and PYD complement each other as SDS sets the foundation to implement PYD. The Social Development Strategy fosters the success and health of young people from before birth through every stage of development. It’s easy to use, easy to remember, and it works! Providing young people with opportunities, skills and recognition strengthens bonding with family, school and community. Strong bonds motivate young people to adopt healthy standards for behavior. This strategy has been tested and proven effective. It is a foundation of CTC. In a research project that followed 808 ten-year-old’s for more than 15 years, the Social Development Strategy was proven successful. When parents and elementary teachers were provided training in how to use the Social Development Strategy during the elementary grades, 15 years later their children had better outcomes than those who did not receive the training. Positive youth outcomes include: a greater percentage of students who graduated high school on time, better economic outcomes, better mental health in their 20’s, significantly fewer sexually transmitted diseases — especially among those at greatest risk, and fewer teen pregnancies.

The Community Plan A key goal of the Communities That Care process is to develop a Community Action Plan that builds on the data-based assessment of a community’s priorities, strengths, and resources. This plan focuses on priority risk and protective factors and draws on community resources and strengths. It also addresses resource and community capacity gaps, issues and barriers by recommending community-level strategies to target policies, community outreach, and environmental changes as well as enhancing existing or implementing new tested, effective programs.

The Ouray County plan accomplishes this goal by identifying specific desired outcomes for each selected strategy or program; for the priority risk and protective factors on which the plan is focused; and for adolescent health & behavior problems. It describes how each selected strategy and program will work to bring about desired changes in Ouray County’s youth and presents recommendations for how these prevention strategies and programs will be implemented in the community. Finally, it provides implementation and evaluation plans for each of these strategies and programs.

Healthy Coalition Maintenance We recognize the importance of maintaining a healthy and high functioning coalition that supports the implementation and evaluation of these strategies and programs moving forward. We commit to focusing attention on healthy board maintenance in the coming year and have outlined the following goals to achieve this vision, and to provide opportunities, skills, and recognition to the board. We use the six elements of a high functioning coalition by addressing:

1. Goal Directedness: During every meeting, we have a clear task in front of us. Board members are prepped and given the tools they need to properly contribute during the meeting. There are different opportunities for training and capacity building throughout the year that are made free and readily available for members to learn about prevention science and risk and protective factors. As a part of the recruitment process, members attend an onboarding webinar which ensures that everyone is at the table with aligned goals and understanding of our vision. 2. Efficiency: We recognize that time is precious, and we work to keep meetings short and focused. We do this by narrowing in on our goal of the meeting or breaking a longer meeting into two sessions. We utilize small group work sessions so that everyone gets a change to share and contribute. 3. Opportunities for Participation: We offer different types of participation opportunities ranging from attendance at meetings, trainings or workshops, and volunteering at youth or community events. 4. Cohesion: We build cohesion by ensuring that everyone understands the mission and vision of CTC. It is important that we create trust and unity within the group and foster relationship building within organization and businesses in our community. We build community within our coalition by understand how everyone feels valued. After polling our coalition, we learned that our members value spending quality time with each other as opposed to monetary gifts. We value the importance of sharing a meal together, creating opportunities for team bonding, and creating opportunities to members to volunteer in different aspects of the community that they normally wouldn’t be able to. 8

5. Diverse Stakeholders: We keep an ongoing discussion about who is missing at the table and why we need them there. Our coalition must be representative of our community and therefore it should be diverse to include all sectors of people who are work impacts. We work with youth, not for them, therefore it is crucial that young people are not only sitting at the table with us but driving our conversations. We collaborate with all agencies who work directly with youth or who’s work indirectly impacts them including: Ouray and Ridgway school districts, local government, law enforcement, youth serving organizations, the faith community, business owners, parents, and media. Recruiting diverse stakeholders is an ongoing process and our coalition is tasked with reflecting inward and addressing what barriers are in our community that are keeping people of color from living here. 6. New Skills: We provide ongoing PYD and SDS trainings to all community board members, key leaders, and community members. We have providing workshops to help members understand how to communicate data in the community. We have ongoing conversations and workshops on prevention and prevention science. It’s our goal to increase our community board members skills to increase their investment in the coalition.

We celebrate and recognize our members for the time and effort spent with the coalition. We provide members with CTC shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and always enjoy a meal together. Without a strong coalition we know that our efforts will not be supported or sustained in the long run. Our goal is to keep CTC in Ouray County alive well beyond the grant cycles.

Community Assessment: How the Information Was Collected In July 2017, Ouray County prioritized risk factors related to youth substance abuse, violence, and mental health on which to focus its prevention efforts, as well as protective factors that could buffer these risks. Data was collected through the 2013 and 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado (HKCS) survey as well as regional data and qualitative interviews. After reviewing the data, Ouray County CTC prioritized these risk and protective factors:

Risk Factors: • Availability of Substances (Community) • Favorable Attitudes Towards Substance Use (Individual) Protective Factors: • Opportunities and Recognition for Prosocial Involvement

In order to prevent a health and behavior problem before if happens, communities must know the risk factors that predict a problem, and the protective factors that help to mitigate the problem. Once communities identify the problem behavior they wish to address, inventorying and prioritizing the risk and protective factors that impact that problem behavior allow communities to then identify solution that impact the risk and protective factors.

The Resource Assessment workgroup collected information to understand the potential strengths and gaps in our community’s capacity to address these risk and protective factors with potential community-level prevention strategies. In February 2018, the workgroup presented a list of potential strategies that would benefit our community, and the Key Leader and Community 9

Boards voted to move forward several efforts. The report on the resource assessment and the community strengths and needs to implement these efforts is located here.

To develop this community action plan, Ouray County first drafted community-level outcomes, which consist of behavior and risk- and protective-factor outcomes. Community Board members drafted these outcomes at the Community Planning Workshops in March and April 2018. Strategy and program selection also took place at these workshops, with the Ouray County Community Board members selecting three prevention strategies to address the identified priority risk and protective factors.

Work was next focused on drafting implementation outcomes, which consist of implementation objectives and participant outcomes where applicable. Implementation objectives set a goal for how community-level strategies will create change in communities; participant outcomes describe the desired changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills or behaviors that programs may produce for participants. Community Board members drafted implementation objectives and participant outcomes at the Community Planning Workshops in March and April 2018.

Selected Community-Level Strategies Based on the public health prioritization of population health strategies, CDPHE conducted a search of fourteen registries and lists that evaluate programs and practices and focus on community and societal-level prevention strategies. CDPHE used the findings of this research to develop the Communities That Care Community and Societal-level Strategies Menu for the prevention of adolescent substance abuse in Colorado. These community and societal-level strategies will help to institutionalize prevention strategies, enhance sustainability, and reach more of the population than individual-level programs alone. The strategies selected by OC-CTC are from this menu.

1. Build public support for conventional enforcement of existing laws: Following a systematic review of available evidence, this strategy has been deemed as “recommended” by the CDC’s Community Preventive Services Task Force

Demand theory dictates that a combination of price, perception of enforcement, and probability of penalties predict substance use among youth. As youth often obtain substances for free from friends, the perception of enforcement and likelihood of consequences are critical factors influencing substance use.

The conventional enforcement of existing laws may be more effective than enacting harsher penalties through policy change. Fees collected through the current licensure and penalty system may be earmarked to provide a steady stream of revenue to support active oversight and enforcement by regulatory agencies. Regular random compliance checks followed by the imposition of penalties for offenders is effective at limiting sales to minors because of the potential for license revocations or suspensions for violators.

Resources & Strengths in Community Gaps, Issues & Barriers in Community Capacity Capacity Licensing restrictions for sale of alcohol Lack of public support for licensing and use and marijuana are in place in public restrictions Licensing restrictions for growth of Lack of knowledge regarding existing laws marijuana are in place regarding marijuana use and effects of use There is an open and public smoking policy Lack of knowledge and enforcement of the Social Host Ordinance There is an open and public alcoholic Perception that the laws are not enforced beverage policy in both Ridgway and Ouray Parental resistance to laws being enforced

2. Leverage statewide mass media campaigns to change community and social norms: Following a systematic review of available evidence, this strategy has been deemed as “recommended” for alcohol use prevention by the CDC’s Community Preventive Services Task Force. This strategy has also been deemed as evidence-based for marijuana use prevention by the Center for Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPT)

Mass media efforts directed at changing the normative perceptions of the community at large and increasing awareness must be sufficiently targeted, have a high-dose, and be reinforced by other strategies. Integration of statewide social norming and education campaigns into local efforts is encouraged. Examples include the Responsibility Grows Here campaign for parents, youth, and marijuana users from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Department of Human Services - Office of Behavioral Health Speak Now campaign to encourage parents to talk to their children about substance abuse or their contractor’s On The Rise campaign focused on changing norms among youth. Another example includes the Take Meds Seriously campaign from the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.

Resources & Strengths in Community Gaps, Issues & Barriers in Community Capacity Capacity Free resources available Currently not comprehensively implemented Support for this strategy in community Need support on how to successfully carry leadership out a mass media campaign Marijuana and liquor store owners are open Need Community Buy-In to mass media campaigns and free training Committed and active CTC implementation Localized effort in messaging and graphic team design Lack of funds for prizes and printing costs for local efforts

Rise Above Mural Installation at Ouray School. Design created by Ridgway High School Student, Maisy Gardner

3. Promote Social Development Strategy, Positive Youth Development in Colorado, Broadly in the Community

As described in the introduction, Social Development Strategy is the theoretical foundation of the Communities That Care model. The following five protective factors have been identified as increasing feelings of bonding and the likelihood of health and success within five components of Social Development Strategy:

Opportunities: Provide developmentally appropriate opportunities for young people to actively participate and engage in meaningful interaction with prosocial others. Skills: Teach young people the skills they need to succeed. Recognition: Provide consistent, specific praise and recognition for effort, improvement, and achievement. Bonding: Acknowledge a young person’s effort and promote positive bonding—a sense of attachment, emotional connection, and commitment to the people and groups who provide that recognition. Bonding can occur with a family member, teacher, coach, employer, or neighbor. Clear Standards for Behavior: Through the process of bonding, young people become motivated to live according to the healthy standards of the person or group to whom they are bonded.

Resources & Strengths in Community Gaps, Issues & Barriers in Community Capacity Capacity Numerous opportunities for prosocial Voyager is the only program that involvement in Ouray County implements Blueprints programs Partners Youth Mentoring program Gap in reaching older youth 15+ Strong Collaboration with Schools Need increased and sustainable funding for these programs Opportunities for collaboration with Only a few agencies have had formal PYD Juvenile Services training Voyager Youth Program is a strong Need to promote PYD in the community backbone agency 12

Need to educate the community re: the importance of PYD

Strategy Outcome Goals 1. Build public support for conventional enforcement of existing laws. Strategy Implementation Objective: By 2021, there will be a reduction in the availability of substances from the gray market, e.g. availability of substances from parents, friends, older young people, transients.

2. Leverage Statewide Mass Media Campaigns to Decrease Favorable Attitudes Toward Substance Use Strategy Implementation Objective: By 2021, youth and adults will change their normative perception of harm from substance use.

3. Promote Social Development Strategy, Positive Youth Development in Colorado, Broadly in the Community Strategy Implementation Objective: By 2021, We will see a positive outcome with bonding and relationships by infusing SDS into the community (youth and adults). Our goal is to put youth on a positive path where they can grow up and become active in any community in which they live.

Health & Behavior Outcome Goals These goals are meant to identify what we hope to achieve in addressing problem behaviors in our community and the Ouray County community vision. The outcomes will help measure changes in the problem behaviors of substance use and delinquency. The following points outline the change goals we have set for our community: ● By 2021, less young people in our community will choose to binge-drink, drink alcohol or use marijuana on a 30-day basis, and instead are more involved and engaged in other school, extracurricular, or community events that are substance-free. ● By 2021, the initiative will reduce occurrences of substance use and abuse by 8% among youth 15-18 years of age, from 33% to 25% for alcohol binge drinking, 30-day use of alcohol by 5% from 25% to 20%, and marijuana 30-day use from 35% to 27%, as measured by the HKCS, using HKCS 2013 as baseline.

Risk and Protective Factor Outcome Goals Risk factor outcome goals are meant to identify what we hope to achieve in addressing the priority risk factors related to the previously described behavior changes. ● By 2021, young people in our community will have increased their perception of harm of and reduced favorable attitudes toward substance use. ● By 2021, perception of harm will increase across Ouray County from 54% to 70% (baseline HKCS 2013). ● By 2021, alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs will be less available for youth to use. ● By 2021, use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs will reduce by 8% from HKCS 2013 baseline data amounts. 13

Protective factor outcome goals specify what we hope to achieve in addressing the priority protective factors related to the previously described behavior changes. ● By 2021, all young people will have access and transportation options to at least one an affordable, safe, and fun public space where they can enjoy being a young-person in a substance-free environment, where they will experience increased connectivity and communication and demonstrate positive behaviors. ● By 2021, opportunities and recognition for prosocial involvement will increase to all sectors of the community, including local government, business, and the arts.

Collective YouthImpact Planned Events PYD Trainings CTC Swag We strive to have a community that is dedicated to the prevention of youth substance use and violence and the promotion of mental-wellbeing of young people. We know that an effective prevention system means that many agencies and individuals work together with a common mission to address community and young people’s needs. We commit to focusing attention on applying the principles of collective impact to maximize existing community assets to support the goals of this community action plan, as well as the strategies and programs in it. Our CTC coalition supports additional prevention programming in the schools by taking a leadership role in the Collaborative Management Program (CMP) which serves at-risk youth ages birth to 21 years of age. Additionally, our coalition supports and attends the Individualized Service and Support Team (ISST) that directly works with youth and families to identify direct resources within the community. This collaboration ensures that programs and resources are being supported but not duplicated in Ouray County. These strategies and programs were selected as part of a comprehensive community planning effort, and we recognize the potential that can be achieved when there is broad community focus on common goals. We have developed the following goals toward this end: • Activate our funding workgroup to explore potential funding streams for all the pieces of our community’s action plan • Work across agencies to ensure appropriate support for successful implementation of each strategy, program, or practice described in this plan • Increase communication and collaboration between youth serving and other agencies • Engage local government in supporting CTC efforts financially and through policies • Key leaders of the community will work together to consider how community engagement and coalition-building efforts can be sustained as part of their agency missions 14

At the same time, we also commit to finding common, community-integrated ways to achieve the sustainability of our collective efforts, embodied in the Communities That Care coalition and process – that have at their heart the ability to integrate community and youth voice into the mission to prevent problem behaviors by building robust community systems that support healthy youth development and safe and supportive spaces for young people to flourish. We know that if we do not start working on securing sustainable support for our coalition, much of our progress will be lost.

Implementation and Evaluation Planning Once capacity goals were set, strategy teams began to develop Implementation and Evaluation Plans to address each goal. Each plan includes a list of activities with action steps, people and/or agencies responsible for carrying out each activity, a feasible timeline, a list of instruments and indicators that will be used to evaluate the process, and ways in which progress will be reported and who will receive that communication. The community board then reviewed each plan and identified how young people in the community can be involved in implementing activities. Individuals and agencies that are part of the coalition will play key roles in assuring these plans are implemented. Roles include carrying out activities, recruiting additional members of the community for support, identifying funding opportunities and assisting in funding applications, receiving and disseminating reports and other deliverables.

The community board and key leaders are the evaluators for this effort. Since our community board is reflective of our community, they are the people who will be seeing our work out in the community. Ouray County Communities that Care is being evaluated on three levels community outcomes, strategy implementation, and health and behavior outcomes. We work in partnership with CU Boulder to administer surveys to our board members and track our progress. Here is the link to the 2019 Ouray Coalition Report. The 2019 Community Reflection Report was administered to Ouray CTC coalition members in May of 2019. The survey asked about their thoughts and opinions about the community prevention strategies underway. These results portray the perception of community members about the quality, satisfaction, and cultural responsiveness of our prevention strategies. The coalition determined that our top 3 areas of strength are civic engagement, general coalition capacity, and motivation. The top 3 areas for improvement are diversity (the Hispanic community), benefits of participation (how we communicate CTC in the community), and youth and adult connections. Our identified goals from 2019 are to enhance diversity and inclusivity within our board, continue to grow in civic engagement opportunities, and continue to build collaborations within our community. These findings are used to reflect on progress to date, and to facilitate discussion on future direction of the prevention strategies. 15

Funding

The Ouray County Communities that Care initiative will be fully funded by the current CDPHE grant until June 30, 2021. There will be another competitive 5-year grant cycle that will start on July 1, 2021. CDPHE grants provide funding and support to Voyager as the backbone agency to operate and sustain the coalition. Technical assistance and evaluation support are provided to CTC communities by the University of Washington, CDPHE, and CU Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at no additional expense. The majority of funding for the implementation of activities must come from additional funding sources. As we progress into the future we see the importance in having multiple funding streams to support this work to last beyond the 5-year blocks of funding.

Recommendations for Next Steps The following are recommendations for next steps that need to be taken by those responsible for implementing, budgeting and evaluating programs in Phase Five of the Communities That Care effort: • Develop detailed implementation plans to deliver each program with fidelity. • Develop specific evaluation plans to monitor program delivery and participant outcomes. • Continue to build capacity and promote prevention science in the community. • Train all youth serving organizations in PYD and/or SDS. • Build a comprehensive marketing plan for CTC. • Continue to recruit diverse members of the community to join the coalition. • Identify future sources of funding, including local, state and federal funding streams and local, state and federal grants. • Recruit and train observers to assist in monitoring program delivery.

Conclusion As evidenced by all the information shared in this Community Action Plan, the Ouray County CTC coalition has come a long way in the past four years towards fulfilling their vision of becoming a collaborative community that prepares youth through opportunities in order to empower, promote resiliency, and increase community connection. In 2020, as the community moves into their fifth year of implementing CTC, the coalition will be focused on increasing the knowledge and skills of our coalition members to champion the work of CTC in the community. We plan to do this by offering unique opportunities for participation and creating more opportunities to our members to bond and create a cohesive coalition. New HKCS data will be available for review, and preparations will begin for the upcoming RFA to continue CTC funding for five more years. It’s an exciting time for members of the community to consider joining this effort.