From February 4 – 7, 2019, West River Valley Thrives attended CADCA’s (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America) 29th annual National Leadership Forum, including SAMSHA’s (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) 15th annual Prevention Day. This forum is the premier and largest training event for community-based substance use and misuse prevention leaders. See a list of speakers here: https://www.cadca.org/speakers-featured-guests.
Capitol Hill Day takes place on the second day of the forum. It provides participants from across the country with an opportunity to educate policymakers in Congress about the importance of substance use and misuse prevention. 10 Vermont coalitions, social service agencies, school representatives, and healthcare agencies from throughout Vermont met with Congressman Peter Welch, Senator Patrick Leahy, and the staff of Senator Bernie Sanders. We also invited them to our state to see first-hand the work we do, the successes we have achieved, and the challenges we continue to face. In preparation for our meetings, the adults mentored our youth representatives to be the spokespersons for our group. Leland & Gray 11thgrade student, and West River Valley Thrives advisory board member, Conall Halvey, took a leading role to make two presentations during each of our respective meetings. Watch Conall’s presentation to Senator Patrick Leahy as he highlights one of our most successful programs offered in communities of northern Windham County, southern Windsor County, and northern Bennington County in collaboration with one of our coalition partners, The Collaborative.
Youth are an essential part of the coalition building process. Youth bring critical insight to what they are facing every day in their communities. CADCA and WRVT’s mission is to build the capacity of community coalitions and one of the ways we accomplish that is through the development of youth leaders. All of our partners have witnessed youth leaders accomplishing great things in our communities. They are the central focus of the work we do and those we seek to involve in our work.
Vermont’s Congressional Delegation listens and understands the issues, challenges, and successes of the work of the prevention coalitions, community groups, social service agencies, and many other partners in our state. Not only that, they strongly support the funding that helps make the local work we do in our communities in substance use education and prevention possible!
It takes a whole community approach to make and keep our youth, community members, and towns healthy!
Join us in our work. Contact West River Valley Thrives at 802-365-4700, or email Steve Tavella at wrvtdirector@gmail.com.