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Annie
Dolan-Pelletier, former Program Manager at Day One and task force member
in Maine, gives tips for states starting up.
Linda
Williams, former Prevention Manager at Maine's Office of Substance Abuse,
talks about finding Maine's "Champions".
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| Beginning
to Mobilize
| Recipe for Success |
Challenges | What
We Learned
Organizing
the States: Beginning to Mobilize
 From
the beginning, our emphasis was to help create lasting changes in
existing systems in the six New England states. We knew that we
had a mere three years to interest states in the issue, mobilize
key people, provide them with resources, and assist them in finding
ways to permanently tweak their state prevention delivery systems
to include inhalant abuse prevention. We took several first steps:
- We got
buy-in from state government. We targeted National Prevention
Network Representatives in each state to sign on to this project
to get immediate buy-in. We predicted that state prevention decision-makers
were in a strong position to invite other key decision-makers
to the table.
| “One
of the other things I’m really proud of
is the connections that we established with nontraditional
prevention partners. In almost every state at this point,
poison control people are talking to alcohol and drug
prevention people in a way they never have before. And
so that kind of partnership is exciting.”
Neill
Miner, former Executive Director, New England Institute of Addiction
Studies |
- We
recommended the formation of statewide inhalant task forces.
The National Prevention Network Representatives began to pull together task forces, which evolved differently
in each state to reflect the unique way each conducted the work
of prevention.
- We
encouraged broad-based participation. We encouraged each
state to work with non-traditional partners such as fire marshals
and poison control centers.
| “I
think that anyone who really looks at what’s happening
to middle school children will see that inhalant abuse is
part of the underlying fire problem and burn problem for middle
school kids.”
Jennifer
Mieth, MA Fire Marshal’s Office |
- We
looked for existing champions. We urged inhalant task
forces to find existing champions for this issue, those who already
knew about the issue, were passionate about it, and could articulate
that to the others
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