The Norwalk Partnership's first meeting as a joint coalition, replacing the former Community Prevention Task Force and The Partnership, took place one year ago this week!
Since then, we are proud to have developed a robust coalition, provided training to coalition members and the broader community, surveyed our community and youth, developed a variety of presentations, created long-needed resources for Norwalk including a website and behavioral health resource lists, formed committees to address our priority topics (alcohol and marijuana/vaping), and more. (Download accomplishments below.)
We are particularly proud of having been able to gather valuable local data on the mental health and substance use of adults and youth in Norwalk during COVID!
TNP's community and youth surveys were made possible through CDC's Drug-Free Communities grant to Positive Directions. (Positive Directions is one of two fiduciaries for TNP's work, along with Human Services Council.) Positive Directions was able to plan, coordinate, and fund the surveys and the data presentations.
TNP used the survey data over the summer to create strategic plans to address substance use prevention needs in Norwalk. We also shared our data with the Social-Emotional Health Committee of Norwalk ACTS and collaborated with them to develop strategies to support youth mental health in Norwalk, based on TNP's survey data and in alignment with TNP's plans.
TNP's Youth Survey results were recently presented, first to the Board of Education and this week to our coalition members. Last week we also presented a summary of our both community & youth surveys to the Common Council, highlighting the mental health & substance use needs of adults and teens in Norwalk in 2021. You can download these slideshows below; access these and other presentations here; or access the survey results here.
This fall we will be updating our infographics using our new data and creating presentations for different audiences. Please reach out to Margaret if you'd like to partner with us in using / presenting the data: mwatt@positivedirections.org.
Meanwhile, you can attend a presentation focused on TNP's youth mental health data at the next meeting of Norwalk ACTS's social-emotional health committee. Please email dlewis@norwalkacts.org for info.
This is important work, and we look forward to our continued partnership to make a difference for Norwalk youth! See you at our next coalition meeting on October 27th, 2pm-3:30pm (online) or at one of our committee meetings.