Sauk County Drug Prevention Coalition Celebrates 5 Years

Sauk County Drug Prevention Coalition Celebrates 5 Years

The Sauk County Partnership for Prevention is celebrating its 5-year anniversary. The community-based coalition works to empower communities to prevent drug use and foster healthy lifestyles. The group currently focuses on youth alcohol use, youth vaping, and prescription drug misuse in youth and adults. Established in 2017, the group is facilitated by Public Health Sauk County. Its members include representatives from schools, healthcare, law enforcement, non-profits, businesses, substance use disorder treatment programs, parents, and community members.

The coalition receives federal funding from a Drug-Free Communities grant and matches one-for-one every federal dollar received through in-kind and cash donations. In 2022 P4P matched $125,000 in volunteer hours, donations, and contributions.

“There is so much we can do to prevent drug misuse in our community,” says parent and recovery coach, Ulli Gruenberg, who serves on the coalition. “Youth and adults who use drugs are often medicating their pain. It starts with this awareness and compassion for one another. Education is important, but it doesn’t end there. We can all contribute to change our community to make it easier for people to live healthier lives, to say yes to life.”

The coalition is proud of its accomplishments, which include educational campaigns and policy change. Accomplishments over the past five years include:

• Policy change: support of updating clean air ordinances in Baraboo and Reedsburg.
• Providing financial support to local school districts implementing evidence-based prevention curriculums in classrooms.
• Providing parent/guardian education on youth development, substance use prevention and more to support healthy families. P4P has provided over seven events with over 600 attendees since 2017. Most recently, the coalition hosted Let’s Talk Vapes & Alcohol: Small Talks, Big Results, educational webinars in April and November 2022 with over 300 attendees either watching live or recorded webinars.
• Hosting health promotion campaigns. Not in My House, launched spring 2022 in partnership with area businesses, builds awareness of the Wisconsin social host law, which makes it illegal for adults to host underage drinking parties. Small Talks encourages parents to talk to youth early and often about alcohol.
• Promotion of safe medication storage & disposal: Over 2,300 medication storage lockboxes to community members since 2018.
• Hosting prescriber education events on alternatives to opioids for pain management and how to effectively taper patients off painkillers.

“The past five years have been a great success for the coalition” says coalition chair Jessie Phalen, RN. “The coalition is energized to strive towards our vision of healthy, supportive communities for all.”

Monthly coalition meetings are open to the public and all are welcome. For more information about the Sauk County Partnership for Prevention or to join the coalition, visit their website at www.P4PSauk.org.