The Prevention Partnership Coalition of Sandusky County founded in 1999 works to build a healthier community by preventing and reducing substance abuse in their local Sandusky County. The coalition has an impressive partnership network that grew and expanded their focus and work scope over their 25 years. The coalition not only added partners, but also improved their work by adding technology programs and solutions to tackle emerging and chronic misuse issues in their local community.
The need for the coalition was identified by a comprehensive Community Health Assessment administered in 1999. The assessment revealed that substance abuse was a top priority. In 2000, the coalition secured the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services (ODADAS) (now Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS)) community coalition grant, allowing them to fund a single staff member to begin coordinating programs and community outreach. Over time the coalition grew from that single staff member to a thriving coalition with multiple staff members and passionate working groups. Engagement with the coalition is so high they host a quarterly consortium of about 50 members to discuss core prevention partnerships and programming.
“I think one of the huge successes is having the coalition’s administrative agent under our local health department because in those early days, working with a $45,000 budget, it was barely enough to sustain a full-time staff member. Being in the health department gave us access to grant writers and their expertise and allowed us to devote more attention to creating community relationships and partnerships,” said Stacey Gibson, Director of Health Planning and Education at the Sandusky County Health Department.
There were even some unexpected benefits for the health department, “Working with the coalition has even helped the health department become a nationally accredited health department. The health department has been able to leverage the coalition’s successes to achieve that accreditation,” Stacey said.
As the coalition grew and gained recognition, additional grants helped them expand the coalition’s scope far beyond what it was in 1999. “Alcohol was the initial focus, then came gambling, and then tobacco prevention came after that. But now we’ve been doing gambling prevention for some time. We always look to add programs that Sandusky County doesn’t already have, so we’ve started suicide prevention, opiate prevention, marijuana prevention, even traffic safety. We were following trends, seeing what is the next thing happening in the community,” said Charlotte Stonerook, Health Education Coordinator at the Sandusky County Health Department.
