Podcast: STAND Coalition: Schools Together Allowing No Drugs [#29]
STAND is a coalition of community organizations, businesses, and individuals focused on the health and well-being of the youth in Scott County, Tennessee. They are leading the way in Scott County's alcohol and other drug prevention.
Part of what they do includes sponsoring prescription drug take-back events, advocate for policy changes related to drug and alcohol ordinances, work with local law-enforcement agencies, and meet with community leaders and citizens to shape drug and alcohol policies. They level of community involvement is incredible and a key to their success. They are quick to give credit to their community members who are coming together to keep their youth safe and community healthy.
Join me for a conversation with Papaw Prevention, the Executive Director Trent Coffey as he shared his wisdom, insights, and lessons learned. Be ready to take notes when he shares his 3 keys to successful community engagement!
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Transcript
Dave: In prevention, we are all leaders. Whether you're leading a nationwide prevention initiative, facilitating statewide prevention community, your coalition coordinator or a one person shop, you are a prevention leader. How we show up and how we engage with others to create positive change takes all types of leadership.
So sit back and enjoy these conversations with your fellow prevention leaders from across the globe who are sharing their lessons learned best practices, and strategies for success.
Welcome back podcast listeners. I'm glad you're here today. Today. We're taking a trip trip to Appalachia a little bit, and, we're gonna learn about some coalition work, some youth work, and some good old stories as well. Cuz I've got Trent Coffee with me here.
Trent. Welcome.
Trent: Thank you a appreciate it. Thank you for asking me to be on.
Dave: Yeah. Oh, looking forward to reconnecting with you and just chatting about whatever comes up. but for our listeners, would you mind sharing just a, a little bit about yourself?
Trent: Okay. My name is Trent coffee. I'm papa prevention as we now call me because I've been in this for over 25 years. So I've kinda aged out, watched everybody come and go. I got into nonprofit work about a little over 20 years ago. I'm in a rural community in Eastern Tennessee. I'm in between Knoxville and Nashville.
Our total population is about 22,000 with that, comes the typical. There's a lot of poverty here. There's a lot of poverty mindset. There's, different. Disparities here, lack of resources. So, what I'm doing here is I chose as, a very few of us do to come back and try to make a change in my community, when school, and then I have to say that.
I wasn't in that, poverty stricken realm. I've been blessed all my life. my family were big community advocates. I came from a gospel singing family. back in the seventies, sixties and seventies were one of the biggest gospels in the Eastern United States.
they were called the coffee family gospel singers, and I remember us having a Greyhound and driving around and doing all that stuff.
Trent: So anyway, we connected with people in the church, setting a. And got to see the disparities and it just kinda, ingrained in me that I needed to come back to my community and do something. so after I graduated from the university of Tennessee, I come back and started to work. Couldn't find a job. so my family owned a little spinner, so I put in a pizza restaurant.
So I did that hardest work you over during your entire life. Never getting to the restaurant. did that for a few years. Then really wasn't using my degree. then, the local judge had a probation position come up and he said, why don't you try this and see if you like it tried, that did that for a few years, he started working on a nonprofit, a programmatic nonprofit that was school drug testing, very controversial back in the time where we drug tested students.
I ended up morphing into that position as a director. And never looked back. as I was doing that, the coalition concept started coming to be, I would like to tell you, asked I was bought into the coalition concept, wanted to do cause so believe it, but really I was chasing, I was looking for the next grant looking for money, but after I got into it, I realized how beneficial with this field process, human community engagement and the structure.
That the coalition concept had. I knew it was so. And grabbed onto that and just never looked back, roughly started out with this nonprofit, starting it with 25,000, one half employees and fast forward 20 something years later, and were closing in on about 5 million in funding over that period of time. Not at all at one time. But closing on a 5 million of funding and got about five employees right now, which is plenty enough for me. So,
The still rule, but I think we've made an impact in our community, but that's why I decided to come back. I've seen people, we always say, you know, make sure you hope and dream. Some people don't know how to hope and dream, cause they've not had that opportunity.
we've had kids in our community that never seen their parents work when they graduate from hospital. So we're trying to change that mindset. And I knew going. With working in the court system with probation, working with my family, that you have to give the rural community all due respect. Okay. There's people, there's families being around here that are raising, members of eight on a $15,000 year salary, which was amazing. Okay. There's men and women that are working in the log woods, we built our, we built our success and our community on the bra of our back by coal and timber and different things like that and hard factory work, but we have to respect them.
and we have to give them all do homage to what they sent to raise that family. What we're trying to do is change youth's mindsets to try something different.
Trent: While saying, you know, if you want to go work at, to near industry and make sleeping back for our troops, that's wonderful. We really want you to do it.
You can make a good living at that, but let's apply something else and see if you may wanna do it. Maybe you can develop something different. So what we try to do is bring truth to our community. Not belittling. And we always listen. We have to listen to what our community wants and then engage with them on the level that they're at.
OK. So that's why I'm here. I just wanna really do, and as it's cliche, and if we just, I stand, sorry, if we just touch one, that we've been our job. If I let one go, I've not done. My job I'd have, I mean, I was telling a one time, he said, well, if you just one, we, well, no, I shoulda just thousand thousand, if just that would done we've everything we can. And that's what I'm trying to do.
So.
Dave: All right. Y'all I don't know if you noticed, but I did. I hear passion drive and caring for the community. I kind of wanna hone in though. You, you mentioned you weren't bought in to the whole coalition thing at the beginning, but you are now what, what is just, what's something you like about working with or the, the coalition approach?
Trent: The process, the process of proving the problem and looking at it at several different angles, not sitting there and saying, you know, we don't have anything, we can't do anything. No. The process of gathering those resources, reevaluating those resources, trying to bring them in and make 'em work for that specific target or action that you need to do with the SPF process is it's, it's just invaluable.
I mean, it's just a wonderful process that we have to adhere to because if you do screw it up, you just reevaluate it and you start over. And then after that, I mean, you at least got these players in play or some type of structure that you can
work. Now, I don't wanna say I was totally against it, the process, but I had to see it for myself.
I had to learn that data is important. I had to learn to chase down those numbers and see, and really prove. And it gave me some epiphanies and like, you know, that's not really the problem. We need to get down to that root cause of what's going on here and not just the spider legs that come from it. So the coalition concept has been just so valuable to me and my community. And I know we can call it something, whatever
that to kids I have. And instead doing logic models, you know, a lot of people don't even know what that is or something like that. It's more than he said, she said, or I heard, or I know somebody, I mean, I have to, I had to get down to it. I had to learn that mindset.
Okay. I had to really buy into that myself to, for my staff, myself and my partners to believe it. And after I got passionate about it, then I, I feel that they became passionate about it. Also.
Dave: mm-hmm yes, yes. So much. Yes, right there. what, about some barriers or challenges within the coalition model?
Trent: Always barrier. always barriers my biggest barrier. And I can, I think I can speak for a lot of coalition, sisters and brothers is consistency of your members. Okay. That's the biggest barrier when we first start and we first have a concept. And we get going everybody's oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We're onto that.
We wanna do that. That's what we wanna do. And then they expect you to do it. Or they won't show up at the next meeting or they don't only wanna be involved in this, in his. That's the barriers just to stay involved. They'll do one and, and they'll do like throw at us different things like that.
But the main thing is I do have a consistent board of directors that has ran my coalition for a long time. Very thankful for that. And then when we do stay engaged on a project, most of them, after a while, after they got that buy-in and they see the concept, they will do their it may be, you know, voluntold, but they will do their when it comes to it.
Out of all of it. It's not been money. I wouldn't, I mean, I'm glad I don't have to say that the money trickles in and out. I mean, it just depends. And every nonprofit director knows that, that's the biggest problem we've had and would like to say it's all fixed.
It's not, but we do have some life longers and then we have some. One timers. And then we have some people that'll come up on request. So that's the biggest barrier for me.
Dave: Yeah. What, when it comes to working with coalitions, are you using the coalition model, what opportunities do you see there?
I try to myself in the other organizations and learn what we can about them and I encourage. My youth and my staff and all them to do that too. Cause they have barriers too. And one thing we especially with the school system, I hear a lot of people across the country.
Trent: Cause I travel a lot like you do, and go to a lot of meetings and different things like that training. And I say, they say we have a hard time getting school and I are you. I, well, we to teach on this concept and. One of the biggest pieces of advice I could get anybody give anybody is if you want to destroy your school school program, ask a teacher to do one more thing, ask an administration to do one more thing.
You can't do that. You have to go in and relieve burdens, not cause'em. We're in the school system every single day indistricts own out a special school district in Scott county school system in their high school, every single day, all day long, they see us as essential. What we've done is we went in and slowly built.
We seen where they didn't have a sub or they didn't have this. And we started volunteering. Well, let us take that for you. Let us do this well, we're having to pay somebody to be here when. Gym class, the coach is gone or driver they're out on the road and we can't afford to do that. Well, we'll just take over that class. We'll do this. We'll help you with your health class. We'll do that. And now, I mean, we go in, we teach ACEs, we teach Botvin life skills. We teach, you know, the coalition model different things like that. And they really depend on us, but I went in not asking for anything. I went in saying, how can I help you?
I learned what their state metrics were and what they had to need. They're trying to teach their
day is compact. And if you say, oh, did you just do this survey? Or could you do this? I mean, they,
you just lost it. So what you gotta do is go in and try to incorporate it. If we need a, a mass training on vaping for just 10 minutes, I will go to all the English teachers and say, Hey, why don't you put this in and make this part of a quiz?
And then we work with you and we're going to be your. For one day in the next semester that you can have a free day off. Okay. They eat it up, they make it a part of their message. Even like in the English, they'll mess up words and have 'em read diagram sentences when it comes to that message or something like that.
So we just find ways creative and innovative ways to pull it in and always making that teacher, that administrator, that principal, whatever a partner in taking away from them, something that's burdensome.
So they won't see us. Oh, here they come again.
You know, so that's one of the big things.
Dave: Yes. Show up to serve show up to help, not just in the schools with all of your stakeholders coming from the law enforcement experience. I would have folks, you know, quote, knock on the door and say, Hey, we need you to go do this strategy, go work this overtime, go do that rather than, Hey, how can I help?
What's your mission? What are your goals? Yeah.
Trent: and then just engaging with them and don't expect them to support you if you're not gonna support them. You know, you've got to show up at their events. You've cause I gotta support their causes. You've gotta do those things. They'll remember it. They may not be as active as you were, but they'll remember it.
And you know, there's, I mean, I can call on people for certain things and you know, certain people just show up. So, you know, working with county government, working with law enforcement, Abraham Lincoln had a quote, you know, it's amazing what you can accomplish. If you don't care who gets the credit, pretty much everything we do is not credited to the coalition.
It's credited to the share. It's credited to the county mayor. It's credited to the school board of directors. It's credited to whoever it may be that we're partnering with. Okay, so, and that's fine. And then we want to do that that's another portion of our success. If we are successful of our success is just giving away that credit and including them, even if they didn't do a lot of work or whatever, you know, just give them topic.
Dave: Mm-hmm what about impacts? What have you seen?
Trent: Impact. We have worked well with engaging our youth. I have worked early on in my coalition career, working with adults trying to change that mindset, try to change the way that they thought, but in a rural community, When we give, when we provide information and we let 'em know, there's a problem, and this is why it's a problem and you need help.
We go, we get to a point that, okay, I've accepted that I need help.
Okay, well, we don't have anywhere we're ready to go. So you're just gonna have to suffer through it. So, you know, I got so sick of that. I got so tired of that because you know, our biggest city is an hour 20 minutes away. Transportation is an issue for everybody in the country and especially in rural communities.
So it was hard to get 'em somewhere to do something with them. I mean, just to get 'em the help that they needed. Well, Me and my staff was looking at, and they said, you know, and along with the coalition comp that we've gotta start earlier. We've gotta start breaking these, chains of addiction, breaking these poverty mindsets.
We've gotta start, you know, early on and let 'em know that this does not have to be the trajectory of their life, just because this is what happened to you is not why it has to stay with you.
So we really started enforcing our youth campaign and our youth education program while looking. And we knew our catchment area was the school system and the boys and girls club.
So we became partners with them. Like I said before, we were looked at what they needed, what outreach they needed, that they went meeting on their state measures. We, incorporated that into our messaging and took it to 'em and they accepted it and it came about to be very beneficial for us because of our engagement with the kids really buying.
And that in itself, when we started teaching ACEs and bot and life skills, Dave was one thing that, and I will brag on us a little bit here. We were teaching ACEs and these kids were coming up and they were just telling us, you know, that's, that's my life, ACEs, number four, you know, whatever, that's my life, that's what I'm going through.
And I don't wanna be like that. What can I do? So we have these eyes coming up to us and some disclosures about bad things, which we appropriately refer it to the proper channels. If we do do that, but coming up to us and I said, we need to send them, we need to get them some counseling. We need to do some stuff.
And they're like, well, we don't have anywhere to go. Anything for em to do. And I about shut the youth program down about four years ago because we didn't have the resources needed. I said, why are we taking truth to them? And you know that here's what's wrong and we're gonna get you some help. We can't follow up with it.
So luckily I worked with, the university of Tennessee, they got a, HRSA grant and happenstance into that because of networking and connections. And they couldn't find somebody to do a certain portion of it. And they said, well, Trent may be able to do it. So they come to us and say, well, can you do this? I like, yeah, we can make that work.
That's fine. We can incorporate it in. So they came in. Long story long that ended up leading to us, working with the college of social work. The college of social work now for free gives us five interns a semester that take via telehealth.
And we instantly out that ended up going through. It's a healthcare center.
They came in, they have an office at our location here. We actually got a telehealth cart set up right here for kids to come in after school.
And then we work with our local FQHC or qualified healthcare facility, mountain peoples, and helping them build their mental health capacity. Again, barriers in that.
A lot of people don't want time to rural communities.
They'll come here for six months and they're gone to fresh outta school. So. Now, what we're instilling in our kids is we have to home grow workforce. We have to home grow professional workforce we're to instill in those that are school mental are that?
Dave: yeah, I hear a whole heck of a lot of good impacts. I dig it.
Trent: well, that's on the mental health side, so I'm good on the addiction side,
and stuff like that. I know what we're doing right now building Um, we're not gonna see the completion of the building, but maybe I live long enough and me and my current staff will live long enough to be able to see that frames structure go up.
But I know on this foundation that we're doing, we're cause of the coalition concept, we're keeping the data, we're keeping the disparities, we're showing what change can be on a small scale, uh, alluding to our professional partners and stuff.
What magnitude could happen on the larger heck of a lot wisdom there from trusting the strategic prevention framework, the process, community engagement, stakeholder engagement, being there to serve, talked about working with the schools. I mean, a whole heck of a lot of wisdom right there. What would be one piece of advice you would offer somebody that, that maybe working with a coalition, but wants to, to reinvigorate, to fire them up to, to keep folks coming back to that table for that consistency that you talked about.
find out what their passions are, go to each individual commissioner, go to each individual mayor, I mean, school board, director, whatever, and Immerse yourself into their life. I mean, go eat lunch with them. Go talk to, 'em see what their passions are and try to take that passion that they got, what they're want to change.
Cause they're serving everybody that's on a position they're serving for a reason. You gotta figure out that what that reason is, and it can't get to them, get to their wife, get to their kids, whoever, do that and never go as wanting something. I always go in as, Hey, I would like to partner with you on this, on something. That instills a sense of purpose and belonging in them.
And that will give them the, I am for you to become a good partner with you. I always be consistent. I always follow. One thing in Appalachia, rural communities, through colleges, universities, anything we have a lot of in people will come in for a year during their grant. Oh, we're this, they're changing this, changing that
and see that again and again. And that's why our, our rural community, it's hard for them to trust the outside. OK.
What we do is we have always been consistent. We have always showed up. We have always stayed on message. And if we can't do it, we tell 'em we can't do it, or we'll figure out a different way to do it. Always listen to your community.
Always listen to your partners. You need to do more of this, then more of this.
Okay. And then work in what you need to work in.to invigorate 'em, like I said, just get with their passions, get with what drives them and let them become the part and give them the credit. Okay. Give them the honor that they need.
So sometimes they won't do nothing, but you know what? You need their name. As long as somebody can realize that and understand, and them lending their name is a big thing. I mean, them lending their reputation to something, you know, sometimes that's all you need.
Dave: Absolutely. You reminded me of a quote from, uh, Dr. Jeff Linkenbach uh, talking about being a, a, a, recovering colonizer coming in from the outside to tell people what they need to do, what they should do. Yeah. Oh, Now you talked about youth as far as being in the school every single day. And how you approach that with the, the burdens, you know, wanting to lift burdens, what all do you have going on when it comes to youth?
Trent: Well, like I said, we're going in with our education program. We're going in with our ACES training going in and letting them not only say this is the problem, but this is why it is a problem giving them some definition and some background that it's not their fault. It's not their fault, they've been through trauma or different things like that.
What we're trying to do is break the cycle. We're always staying engaged. We meet youth where they're at. And I know I've said this earlier, but the, one of the things we do is we'll just sit and listen to our kids. Okay. We have to just let 'em talk and sometimes you'll come to the same result without fighting with them, but you just have to set and listen to them and let voices be heard.
I know I stole that from somebody. I dunno who it was, but, but you gotta let their voices be heard and give them. Belonging and value. we have several different disparities going on in rural communities right now. And a lot of the times if we'll just sit and spend the time and give them some importance and listen to 'em and help 'em work through either a major trauma or a minor teenage still dilemma, um, they know they can come to us. Okay. And that. Pretty much, not stops the health, the disparities, but it helps sub do something from getting worse.
And then if it's bad enough, then now we'll, we're able to refer out, do we're not mental health counselors. We're not psychologists. We're just sitting there to listen. We're a shower cry on or laugh with or anything, whatever case it may be.
And then that there's trauma or disparity. We can refer it out or try to connect resources.
Dave: I love it. Just caring about people, caring about youth. Yeah. Become, uh, was it, uh, Dale Carnegie be genuinely interested in others?
Trent: And you can teach by listening. You can guide by listening.
Dave: Absolutely the that's great great wisdom folks. Jot that down. Y'all what does youth engagement look like on your coalition?
Trent: Youth engagement is good. when, uh, our last coalition then right before school ended, we had over 80 coalition members, youth coalition members come to our come to, um, our youth coalition meeting. And this was a great thing because they were having to come from different locations in different schools. Okay. And we've seen that grow over the years. again like adults, we have some filter in and filter out and, um, you know, we don't just take the good kids. We don't just take the, you know, the cheerleaders or the, the, you know, the quarterbacks or whatever we want everybody to come. We have a great diversity of students.
We're rural.
I don't wanna say town, but one little and you can't even say subdivision, but one little niche of our county here is totally culturally different than the little niche back here. OK.
So what we're seeing is we're seeing emerging of those different cultures come in and people really just listening to it and I've kinda
you know, kind of, we kind come to the understanding that the problems, not really with the youth it's of carrying on that rivalry or carrying on that, animosity toward another group, like.
Our population of 22,000, we have hundred 40 Baptist churches here. So I mean, that kinda tells you, and that as a result, as somebody mad at somebody and start their own church.
So there's nothing wrong with that. You know, that. kinda shows we're at. Our youth engagement are good. We give, we make them come up with. we're guided by the grant I say guided in a loose way. So it's more strict than that, but, um, we're guided by the grant, so we need to, so we give them instruction.
And say, all right, you need to come up with a vaping norms campaign, or you need to come up with this. Or, and each child will gravitate toward the table that they want to go to again, on partnerships, what we do is one of 'em may think homelessness is one of the biggest things. So we include the homeless shelter.
We include the women's shelter. We include the family justice center. So they're represented there. And some of the passions that I'm not funded for is domestic violence. Well, we have a whole group that works on meth and teen dating and domestic violence, but I do incorporate my drug free. Alcohol free, you know, message within that so I can get paid for it.
But I also give that knowledge and that credit to the women's shelter that come in and help partner with us on that in different things, you know, like that. So we try to, um, make it full size that let 'em gravitate to what they wanna do, and then try to not only ignite that passion, but throw gas on their passion when they do something.
Dave: Yeah. to to ignite to, to foster, to fuel that, that passion, that engagement, that buy. Yeah. What, what kind of challenges have you experienced when it comes to engaging youth with your coalition?
Um, a lot of times in a rural community we kinda have had some we have had some disagreements onin different aspects of their lives. Um, we always want their voices to be heard and we want 'em to be loved. So we've not come under attack. We come under scrutiny and that's just a lack of education. And I in my community and I have to recognize that and realize that, OK.
Trent: So what we try to do is we try to start a diversity group, or something like that, that kids can freely express how they feel their sexual orientation, anything like that, and give them, get them with a group counselor that can come in and talk to them about that. I was hesitant. At first because of my rural community. We took a little verbal discipline for that, but after it come down to it, we stead fast. We went with it. And now that group's thriving and doing well. And again, I mean, it's just. Sitting and listening to sitting and talking to em, knowing what their passions are and trying to address disparities trauma as addiction can, or addiction paths can be like that.
Dave: Looking at lessons we've lessons learned when it comes to recovery, it used to be send somebody to, to rehab, to isolation. And what we found is connection, community support. Yeah. And you are creating the opportunity for connection, for community, for support for the youth.
Trent: One, the way this pro the way this coalition got started was on a programmatic piece that I alluded to earlier and what that pro programmatic piece was. And this has been 20 years ago is we drug test each high school student. In school with the consent form. All right. Although be if that consent form may be tied to something, if you wanna play ball, if you wanna drive to school, if you, if you wanna go to the prom, if you wanna be in a activity, you have to submit to be in randomly drug tested.
We were been challenged by the NAACP different things like that. It was early on in Bush, one years or two years that we got this school testing grant. We one, the first in the country to one of the only ones that still doing it. The only reason that this works. Is we'll do a random pool we'll test kids throughout the year.
And if they test positive, then we offer support. They can never lose driving time. They can never lose playing time. They can never have any punitive actions to it. What we try to do is early intervene, inform the parent first and then come up with a plan with them, with the resources that we have and try to hit that head on.
then they continue to be tested a little bit non randomly, more, more throughout the term. So to maintain sobriety and different things like that. But the main reason that we have stayed this long is it will never, if it comes through us,
Trent: it will never come to court petition. It will never become a punitive action.
Now school suspicion based testing is totally different. That's not us. That's something else. but what we try to encourage parents when they're signing that is like, listen, This is an early catch. This is to see if somebody's just experimenting and with the way drugs are nowadays, you know, you can become addicted fairly quickly, so we want help you, and then we have parents call us, Hey, could you, Dave was really, and I just don't confront him. So, we went starting on that program. We started out with $150,000 a year from the federal government and ran that program for about four years. Now we're down to $20,000 so, to run that portion of the program, we've never let it go because it's a very viable, important part of the piece of the puzzle that we got, got into the school, got into the coalition concept and got funding, but they won't pay for direct spring, but we have never stopped that. We know. That eventually that money will come back. They, success is in the volume of tests that you do. And there's so many safeguards in place. I want somebody thinking that we're sitting and looking at 'em or doing things like that. It's all done discreetly and privately and different things like that.
And when we first started, we have some controversy and parents were upset, but once they seen that nothing was really gonna happen other than informing them, then they were good and we provide support. The kids now, they go, I'm not gonna have to go the bathroom again, or, you know, something like that. So it's just immersed into the culture here that they know they're gonna have to be, you know, direct screened, at least That deterrent there. Okay. That deterrent is something for our football team and different things, that we can at least put one, a one roadblock. Okay. And then if it starts becoming bad, we can intervene early.
Dave: yeah, it's coming with the, the support for that intervention.
Trent: Totally not punitive. No. And with our recovery community, we had to work really big.
We are blessed to be able to have a lifeline hybrid person's a guy in recovery that helps, um, build the recovery community on staff. We were ordered with the grant about two years ago on that. So working on stigma for several years, with the faith based community, getting out that moral choice, you know, dilemma that we got going on, treating our people with love.
Treating our people with respect, you know, I said just don't. I mean, no, don't give money. Don't do this. Just make sure they have, you know, everybody has so beat an encouraging word. Sometimes this encouraging word is, oh, this person's ever gonna get from anybody. So anybody can pray. And, you know, anybody can and say, Hey, thinking about you. I think you can do this. You're gonna do it. You know? And we've made big stride in that with our, um, lifeline. changing the mindsets of the, religious community and getting them to more involved and long way to go on from where.
Dave: and, uh, y'all have the passion to get you there though. I wanna wanna ask more about the, the youth on your coalition.
What cool fun innovation type of programs, activities, events. What, what have the youth done?
Trent: Well, we usually have a coalition carnival at the end of the year where, um, we kinda, turned it in cause of funding. We turned it into a. Pseudo field day type thing. And that's an appreciation for all kids. So they have S races. They have corn tiles, they have face paintings, they have checkers, they have all these games and we have local partners donate, um,stuff, animals, little stuff like that.
So they really get involved in that. And then we have all those partners come in and sit at booth and have their own distributor. Have law enforcement there, we have, um, officials there, everything like that. And then kids are just free, hot cone that the extravagant in and out out, and then had a real good time. Let the local and teen band play all day And all that stuff, you know, just really just giving them a voice. other things that they have done, we have recently are on the teen side. Our youth came together and, and. We have our meetings at the boys and girls club.
And they got the seeing that the, um,youth side, the teen side of the boys and girls club was a little disheveled. They went out, got donations of paint and they painted and remodeled the whole entire, um,side. we were doing a field project at the homeless shelter about three years. And the kids looked school to the raised the whole entire building with a roller. And we did and cleaned and mulched and did stuff like that and got it going. we do a lot of outreach on like at local stores and stuff like that. They'll take pamphlets and flowers and stuff about, whatever drug issue we got going on. Whether it be methamphetamines, marijuana, tobacco, vaping anything like that.
They try to work on those, anything we do, we try to. Make it fun for 'em and let them kind of come up with their own ideas. OK. I sometimes as CADCA says, youth led adult guided. We have to do quite a bit of guiding to meet our metrics, but usually if we let, 'em just kind of be free range and kind of do their own thing, I mean, they have wonderful, great ideas. Better to connect with youth than youth I mean, I was like, why was on Facebook? I nobody's on Facebook anymore. That's nobody does. That's nobody does
that go have anything on? So, um, pretty much letting 'em 'em do different things like that. Um, boys and girls that have had a hall of fame dinner, they have it every. Total hall of fame. You know, they, they honor people in the community that have done good that year. Well, our youth takes that opportunity to serve.
So they, you know, they cater at dinner. So our youth are the waiters. They dress in black and white. We get their outfits, they go in, they clean up, they get the tables, they serve the food, they refill the drinks, they do that stuff we're trying to teach. 'em, you know, You're doing this because they're raising money, but you're also giving back to the boys and girls club, but you're being a part of the community and support them.
So we do that every year. We work at fair, just a whole bunch of different, smaller things that we've done for so long that I just don't even think about anymore.
You know, but then when I tell somebody else say, oh, that's big. That's, that's, that's all we've been doing that for years. We don't pay attention to that.
you know, things like that. Cause I think sometimes.
Being in the business for so long, I'm looking for the big thing. And I kinda discount a small thing sometimes, you know, because I'm always looking for something big and bright and shiny or something, that's gonna make a huge impact, even though all my life in this field. I know that incremental change is where it's at, but sometimes the flesh gets involved and I'm wanting that big. yes. Um, atomic habits, James clear those small, tiny habits. Repeated consistently are gonna lead to much bigger change than one big attempt at change. 1% better every day.
Right. And those kids are being engaged. They're feeling a part of something besides. Themselves, you know, or they're feeling a part of something and then we encourage them. I am, you know, pretty much we got a good team here, Vicky, my youth director, like I said, she's the grandma she loves on, on, and love and hugs them and all that stuff and just, oh, you're gonna be fine.
And you're gonna do this. And I mean, this is the business that we're gonna do. And we're gonna, so I'm kinda like the disciplinary dad.
They're all kinda, they say they're scared of me, but I think it's a lie, but I'll go into the coalition meeting. They'll be inter as do sometimes. I mean, I've, I'm here to teach you and teach you discipline and teach you how.
To run a coalition, run a business, how to help you with your job interviewing skills. We try to do a lot of workforce development. I say, now we gotta get down to it or I'll shut this thing down and I've actually shut the whole entire thing down for cause of inter and fighting all everybody's suspended for two months.
We're not doing anything. We actually canceled our last carnival this year. Because I had a lot of kids promise to do things that they didn't do. And I was like, I'm.
Dave: oh my
Trent: And they're like, I swear, we'll do it next time.
Now we're going through a different process. If they wanna be on the board, the youth board or the youth coalition, they have to commit to so many hours of service within, you know, the semester. And if they don't, then we, um, we remove them through the board for another six months.
So. I know that sounds extreme, but I have got to have boundaries and parameters for 'em and try to teach that discipline and that what they're doing is important. Okay. Vicky can love them all the time, but I want teach 'em structure. I want to teach 'em work ethic.
I want teach em to show up. So, and that's kind why we have a good team.
It goes back to the same old cliche. Good top back. I think, you know what I'm saying?
Dave: I may have like, oh gosh, there's that dad voice? Oh, no, don't yell. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I promise I'll take the trash out. but yeah, what, what I I'm seeing there is. Yes, you're there to engage the youth, work with the youth and serve the youth. But you're looking at it in a, a holistic approach, not just the specific program, the programmatic outcomes or those deliverables. You're interested in the entire youth wellbeing.
Trent: We have to, if you give a child boundary, they know you care and without boundaries. And that's what a lot of our youth deal with is no boundaries. They know when they come here, they have boundaries, and they have to adhere to those. And I promise they, it makes a bigger impact of enforcing those boundaries than it does just, um, giving 'em everything that they want. OK. They know I care and they know that we want, or we care that we want the best for 'em and we're gonna help them get there.
And if they need to take a break from it for a little while, then that's fine, but they're always welcome back. There always can come back. You know, we have kids come in that even actively, um, you know, like, you know, a child would've went to a party on the weekend and then it gets back to us.
Cause everything always gets back to it's like, come in, you messed up. That's whatever. Are you not mad? Well, I'm disappointed that. Chose to do that, but am I mad? No. I mean, I just hope you make better choices next time, but we, you come on back, but you've gotta, you've make better choices, you know this, and then we go over the scenario.
That's not all the time, but they know they can come to us and not have judgment or punishment, but that way we can guide 'em to better choices as they go along.
Dave: They have those, those boundaries, but with that comes a place to belong a community, to be a part of that, that sense of belonging and safety and consistency.
Trent: we don't expect nor do we want perfection. Cause we're not perfect. I mess up every day. I mean, we don't want perfection. We want somebody to do their best. We want 'em to make good choices. That's what we're here to do. Think about it, you know, think of the long term consequences, the short term consequences, think of the benefits, you know, and when we engage like that and get just thinking,
Dave: mm-hmm mm-hmm
Absolutely. I took a lot of notes, both on my, my word doc, but also mentally there's so much wisdom here from community engagement to, to working with youth schools. We're just about out of time, but
Trent: Talk to your
Trent: people be listening. They'll be like, oh my gosh, gonna shut up.
Dave: Oh, no.
no.
So I've got two more questions for you. the first being more about the, the work you're doing?
Trent: Um, we have social media. I'm a 53 year old man. I know we have; I know we have Snapchat. I know we have Twitter. Um, I will have to give them to you when I find out what they are somebody to over that.
Dave: mm-hmm
Trent: questionable that needs to posted, posted, but I will get them all you, Just reach out to us through like those social media PLA platforms, or you'll be able to put our, um, email address up there or phone numbers, different things like that, because I'm still kinda old school. I mean, you're the younger guy. I loved one on one communication and personalization. I love and doing that one-on-one interaction with people I'm still, like I said, old in that way, I like to pick up a phone and call before I'll send an email.
I mean, and I know. Crazy. But, um, and that's one thing with our youth too. We try to teach those people skills. We're losing a lot of people skills in our community, and I'm trying to teach that also I'm teaching how to shake a hand, how to look the eye, I'm teaching how to do different things like that. But, um, yeah, they can reach out us at any of those variety of weight that ill to you as soon as we get off here and. Promise to you and. with your health to enhance those, to where we can, um, be better reachable in those venues.
Dave: Roger that's folks. Those links will be in the show notes, cuz he's gonna get those by the time this episode publishes. Now the last question, uh, I feel like I need a drum roll sound effect here for our audience of prevention professionals across the country or globe. Actually, if you were to tell them, if you remember one thing from this episode, remember this. What would that be?
Trent: Remember to say consistent. Okay. Don't offer anybody, anything that you can't follow up with. Don't be a burden to any one person or organization while you build this. Education platform, program, whatever you want to do. I always engage, listen, and don't be a burden and be consistent. Those are the three main things.
Okay. Be consistent. Don't be a burden. And listen, that has served me well. It took me a very long time to learn that. And, but when you do those three things, it will garner you more partnerships outcomes than you would imagine.
Dave: Marvelous. Marvelous. I'm gonna pull that clip out and just replay it over and over. Beautiful. Well, thank you for logging in and having this great conversation next time. Uh, let's meet at a coffee shop and actually, you know, shake hands and have that in person connection.
Trent: That's right. That's what we all need as a society. We need to interact. You need to see eye to eye and shake hands.
Dave: Absolutely together is better so much. So thank you very much.
Dave: Yeah. Hey, thank you. Stay in touch. I'll see you at the coffee shop.
That concludes this episode. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and share this episode with a friend before you leave, and we look forward to seeing you on social media because prevention is better. Together. Together, we are stronger.
