Sometimes we may ask ourselves: “What can one person do to make a change in their community?” Or, “There are so many problems that my community is facing, how do I know the best way to help?”
At SARCC, we are working to prevent community violence and uplift our local youth voices through a prevention model called: “Communities that Care”. This 5-phase process is research-based and utilizes evidence-driven prevention methods. This strategy analyzes the problems in any given community and then systematically works to change them long term.
Through this process, our Lebanon County Connected Together community board members met on Sunday, September 17th to discuss plans for working through our Communities that Care prevention model from the beginning again. At this time, we are beginning to assess community readiness to undertake collaborative prevention efforts, and identify the stakeholders who need to be involved. During this meeting, we also briefly reviewed Phase 1 Communities that Care materials, reviewed and renewed board member commitments, and discussed our workgroup plans for the rest of 2023. Lastly, our intern Cara Boring was introduced to the board during this meeting as well, she will be with us through the rest of the year while working on securing her master’s degree in public health.
At our next Board meeting in October, SARCC Board Member and Tamaqua Community Partnership Executive Director, Micah Gursky, will join our meeting to share about the implementation of Communities That Care in his town and how it has helped to reduce crime by 40%. To get connected as either a key leader, or community board member, please reach out to Caitlin Lockard (Connected Together Coordinator) at clockard@sarccheals.org.