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Grand County Public Health implements Communities That Care

Sky-Hi News Staff Report

Grand County Public Health (GCPH) has been awarded a five-year grant by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) for implementation of Communities That Care (CTC).

CTC is evidence based, prevention planning system that enhances existing coalitions and community partner initiatives to address youth substance abuse.

This community-driven effort utilizes local data to identify the risk and protective factors associated with a specific behavior. Realizing that behavior is multi-faceted, the model looks at all spheres of influence in a child’s life: Individual, Relational, Community and Societal. The five-phase system targets predictors of problems rather than waiting until problems occur.



The coalition formed in this process, will be a long-term solution to the issues affecting our youth, not simply a one-time quick fix. Once the initial assessment and subsequent implementation is complete, the work groups will again move through the five-phases to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention and plan additional strategies to continue to address the needs of our youth

To date, GCPH has engaged 20 key stakeholders from various agencies and government offices from across the county, and formed the CTC Key Leader Board.



GCPH is currently in the process of identifying individuals that will serve on a Community Board and subsequent work groups. Once appointed and oriented to the Communities That Care process the work groups will begin to look at the data and determined the coalition’s course of action.

Grand County Public Health will continue to report back to the community on the work of the coalition.

Anyone in the community that is interested in serving on the Community Board or the work groups; or have further questions about Communities That Care please contact CTC facilitator Julie Hines at 970-725-3787 or jhines@co.grand.co.us


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