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Positive Alternatives Coalition - Intercultural
Leadership Initiative
Community Wide Prevention Dinner Meeting #3
March 8, 2007
Norwood Pines SUpper Club, Minocqua
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We had an amazing
turnout from across our
community for this meeting, the third in a series of community meetings
that
are being held to bring us together as we search for ways to find
solutions to
ensure the health and well-being of all of our area youth. We had an
incredible
diversity of people in the audience last night that will enable us to
move forward
towards the goal of establishing a comprehensive Community Wide
Prevention Plan and help us in creating the authority we need to make
this
happen: local community members from most of the communities that feed
into
LUHS; HOPE members; school board members; tribal council member; county
judge;
lawyers; Lions Club president; community volunteers; school prevention
leaders
and workers; community prevention leaders and workers; members of the
faith
community; parents; youth; healthcare professionals; education
director; social
workers; business people; news media; prevention program providers and
facilitators; and more! We had close to 100 people, sharing food,
listening to
each other and creating a wonderful energy to set the stage for
positive
change. As one person said, “people talk about how things have been for
the last 30 years, I believe this could be the start of the next 30
years.”
Many good things
happened at the meeting. We
began with a short welcome by Bob who explained again why we are here
and what
the Community Wide Prevention Plan process is all about. The purpose of
these
meetings is to encourage the community-at-large to come together to
discuss a
wide range of ideas, strategies, protocols and "best practices" that
we would like our schools and communities to employ in the effort to
keep our
children healthy and vibrant. From these discussions a Community Wide
Prevention Plan will be developed. We will ask people in positions of
leadership in our schools, county and Tribal governments, and
communities to
sanction these community ideas and create the authority to insure
implementation of this Plan. We will ask everyone in our community to
ratify
this Plan so there is a degree of accountability. Bob then introduced
Lynn Bartling of Northwoods Restorative Justice to
discuss that program as an example of a “best practice”.
We’re hoping to be able to introduce a number of these programs to the
community so folks gain a better awareness of the many wonderful
efforts going
on in the community. After explaining the Restorative Justice process
and
fielding some questions, the LUHS ILI students came to the front to do
their
dramatic performance.
The students put a
banner up on the wall
which read: “We’re not asking for change because something bad
happened, we’re asking for change because change needs to happen.” The
students stood in front of the group and each one talked about why ILI
is important in their lives. They talked about new
friendships, feeling connected and feeling safe. They then did a short,
very
moving and powerful skit of the performance they are working on for the
audience. This performance came out of their wanting to express their
feelings
with regards to the lockdown in December at the high school and how,
thankfully, no one was hurt, but it was scary and it could have ended
differently. The scene started: There was a student lying on the
ground,
covered with a sheet, while another student read a beautiful, sad poem
written
by the “deceased” student. As more lines were read, other students
slowly came over and mourned the fallen student, arms around each
other. It was
very moving, some in the audience had tears in their eyes. Afterwards,
the
students answered questions from the audience for quite some time,
sharing
their versions of how the lockdown went and how it made them feel. The
students
did an amazing job talking about all this-with an ever-present air of
confidence that what they were doing as a group was going to change
things for
the better. They talked about sharing their presentation with the LUHS
school
body as well as the feeder schools. They told the audience how their
presentation talks to others about bullying, racism, violence,
substance abuse,
self mutilation and other real issues that they experience in their
lives. Their
message is about strength, making positive choices and helping others
see how
positive change can occur. Before they left last night, one of the
students
stood up and, after thanking everyone for being there and how such a
great
turnout made them all feel like what they were doing was important and
valued,
she said she hoped that everyone stay longer, to keep talking because
that is
what was going to make a difference.
We followed her advice
and kept on talking.
The discussion was incredibly respectful and for the most part
everyone’s
comments ended with an eye towards a positive solution. In all honesty
as well,
we did have an issue last night that bears mention. There was an
altercation
between one of the students in the ILI group and another student a few
days ago
that some ILI staff were aware of, and yet the
student involved participated in the presentation last night. We spent
quite
some time after the meeting discussing all this with the parent of the
other
student and will be doing what we can to help bring some kind of
restorative
outcome to this incident. Sometimes our best intentions don’t work but
if
we keep talking and are willing to keep trying maybe something good can
come of
it. After listening to Lynn
discuss Restorative Justice last night, it only drove the point home
deeper
that we must consider these kinds of alternative interventions if we
are ever
going to change what happens between kids. Hopefully, through this
Prevention
Plan process, we can speak to this directly.
The rest of the evening
gave ample
opportunity for folks to stand up and talk about what was on their
minds and
many good ideas and suggestions were aired. One of the primary
“solutions” that arose last night was for everyone in the room to
become more “active doers”. From the turnout and the good energy
there seems no doubt that many people are ready to step up and take
that
challenge.
The next meeting will be
Tuesday May 8,
location to be determined. We will be composing a summary of last
nights
suggestions and will put that together with notes from the 2nd meeting
that we will get out to you. Bob handed out at the end of the evening a
draft
of suggestions for folks to add to or subtract from (see attached) as a
way to help
folks start this process. Please keep emailing us with your suggestions
of
programs, best practices, policies etc that you think are critically
important
components to this Plan. We will keep working them in and at the next
meeting
we will focus on action steps and begin a process to put our solutions
into a
working plan. We’re going to try and do this in a very interactive and
creative way, so next time come ready to roll up your sleeves and help
us build
this Plan!
Thanks everyone for
coming and helping to
show our youth we are committed to them, and thanks especially to the
youth who
were there for showing us how change happens in a positive, healthy way
Bob Kovar, Project
Director
Intercultural Leadership
Initiative
Positive Alternatives
Coalition
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