Coalition 101
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What's a coalition?
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Our coalition is a group of community volunteers and leaders from twelve sectors of the community who work to prevent substance misuse and addiction, particularly in youth. We serve the communities of Walled Lake, Wixom, Wolverine Lake, and Commerce Township and those families in the Walled Lake Consolidated School District.​
What do you do?
How are you funded?
We are funded through two grants: a federal grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and a county grant from Oakland Community Health Network (OCHN). These grants allow us to pay two staff (Joan and Karen) and they fund the bulk of our programs, events, and initiatives. We also need community financial support! We are continuing to develop fundraising campaigns, corporate funding, major donors, and individual donations.
Some of what we do is what you might think of first as youth prevention programming: we have assemblies and in-school educational programs for students. But more of what we do is community-based environmental change:
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ensure alcohol retailers have appropriate signage and education on legal restrictions on serving/selling alcohol​
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create media campaigns promoting positive social norms (most kids are NOT using drugs and alcohol!)
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encourage municipalities to develop stronger ordinances for social hosting, enact limits on alcohol and marijuana accessibility
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provide safe and accessible ways to dispose of unused prescription drugs
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educate medical staff on appropriate use of narcotics
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provide community training in Narcan administration to prevent overdose deaths
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give out alcohol bottle locks, marijuana locking bags, and prescription bottle locks to prevent underage access
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work with law enforcement and courts to strengthen enforcement of underage substance use ordinances
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work with schools to strengthen policies around youth substance use to improve education and access to resources
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improve community access to healthy, positive, wellness activities to build protective factors around kids and families
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promote mental health care resources and good mental health habits for youth
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develop leadership in our youth by maintaining a Youth Action Board
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How can I help?
We are always looking for people who want to get involved with LACC. You might like a leadership role as a sector representative or task force chair. You might want to volunteer one time to staff a table for a couple hours at a public event. Maybe you have a special skill that you could donate for a project (like graphic design, media, fundraising, event planning, teaching, working with kids). If you have community connections, you can be a public advocate for prevention by communicating our work with your network through social media and sharing your connections with us. If you are a person living in long-term recovery, maybe you would like to share your story with young people and families at an event or through a video. If you have an idea, we would love to hear it!
How do you know if you're making a difference?
All our work is part of our Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF). This is a proven public health model that is used all over the country by coalitions to create meaningful, lasting change at the community level. We have developed a detailed community assessment and logic models for alcohol and marijuana use in the Lakes Area using current local data. We create and implement specific action plans with measurable outcomes for each part of our logic model. Our process of ongoing assessment ensures that we are making an impact on short-term indicators which lead to long-term, systemic change.
