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Carter County Connects for Prevention
April 2020 Update |
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Carter County Drug Prevention is an anti-drug coalition designed to bring together diverse organizations, factions or constituencies who agree to work together to achieve a common goal.
VISION: To create a safe and healthy Carter County.
MISSION: Reduce substance abuse through collaborative planning, community action, and policy advocacy.
NEXT MEETING: Wednesday, April 1, 2020 3:00pm
via Zoom!
Topic: CCDP April Meeting
Time: Apr 1, 2020 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/4348480678
Meeting ID: 434 848 0678
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COVID-19: Potential Implications for Individuals with Substance Use Disorders
The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges for people with substance use disorders and in recovery.
Please contact us if you need assistance with smoking or vaping cessation or locating recovery resources during this time.
“Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.”
“It is therefore reasonable to be concerned that compromised lung function or lung disease related to smoking history, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), could put people at risk for serious complications of COVID-19.”
“Vaping, like smoking, may also harm lung health. Whether it can lead to COPD is still unknown, but emerging evidence suggests that exposure to aerosols from e-cigarettes harms the cells of the lung and diminishes the ability to respond to infection.”
To read more, visit
For virtual recovery resources and guidance for providers, visit
Virtual AA Meetings
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THANK YOU
to volunteers from Calvary Baptist Church, Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library and Red Legacy Recovery for teaming up with us to offer lunch to Carter County families last week.
Each child received a hot meal and book from the library. Along with their meal, parents received batteries to change their smoke detectors from Calvary and a guide for talking to their kids about drugs while they are home from school.
In our last student survey, we learned that less than half of students had a conversation with their parents about drugs, tobacco or alcohol, so we hope they will take this time to engage.
Printed versions of this parent guide are available at the CCDP office.
An electronic version can be downloaded and shared from here.
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PEAK Progress:
Spotlight on Mentoring
- If you are interested in being a mentor but haven't been able to make it to a training, we now have an online version! To access the training, reach out to Shannon at elizabethtonmentors@outlook.com.
- On March 12, 2020, our mentors (and 20 community members) received training from Becky Haas, Ballad Health's Trauma Informed Administrator. All mentors receive training in Adverse Childhood Experiences before being matched. Mrs. Haas shared additional information for mentors to engage with mentees who may have experienced trauma.
Pictured: Jilian Reece with her mentee YM.
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Welcome, Jocelyn!
We are so excited to welcome Jocelyn to our team as our Program Assistant!
Jocelyn is a senior in highschool and will be graduating in May 2020. Her favorite part of her job is getting to work with all the other teenagers in the community and talking about addiction and mental health with them. Jocelyn also loves getting to teach youth in our community to use narcan and recognize what an overdose looks like. She hopes that she can make a difference in the number of deaths by overdose through this program. She plans to start her own coalition once she moves away for college.
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Tennessee Day of Hope
On March 10th, CCDP hosted an event in honor of "TN Day of Hope" at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library. Speakers shared stories of substance abuse, recovery, making a community impact and more to show support and encourgement to others. Check out our video featuring highlights from this event.
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Day Of Hope
Pictured is Angela Hagaman telling the story of CCDP.
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FROM TDMHSAS: March 10, 2020 is being celebrated as Tennessee’s Day of Hope. The inspiration for the Day of Hope comes from hearing Gov. Lee talk about HOPE on multiple occasions. He often says that the important and impactful work being done in the behavioral health field is giving hope to the hopeless. For so many people, the hope of a better tomorrow is a source of strength and motivation to continue the work to overcome the hurdles in their lives or support the needs of a loved one, friend, or neighbor. Through the collective action on Tennessee’s Day of Hope, we aim to inspire a collective sense of statewide hopefulness in the face of our state’s significant challenges in the fields of addiction and mental illness.
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NATIONAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL FACTS WEEK
Carter County Drug Prevention's Youth Coalition and SADD Club planned to participate in National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® by hosting a display at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library. While this has been postponed due to the library closure due to COVID-19, virtual resources are still available.
Join teens and scientists across the U.S. in week-long effort to SHATTER THE MYTHS® on drugs and alcohol as part of “National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week®” (NDAFW). The week-long health observance, organized by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), both part of the National Institutes of Health, celebrates the inquisitive minds of teens by giving them a space (virtual or physical) to ask questions about drugs and alcohol and to get scientific answers from experts.
As part of the NDAFW celebration, Carter County Drug Prevention students will host an event at the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library. While drugs can put a teenager’s health and life in jeopardy, many teens are not aware of the risks. Even for those teens who do not abuse drugs, many have friends or family who do, and they are often looking for ways to help them.
“We want teens to have the opportunity to learn what science has taught us about drug abuse, alcohol, and addiction,” said Jilian Reece. There are so many myths about drugs and alcohol cluttering our popular culture. National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week®is for teens to get honest answers about drugs so they can make good, informed decisions for themselves and share accurate information with friends.”
At this future event, we will have many different scenes showing facts about drugs, alcohol, and even tobacco. We will have a community craft project where you can come buy a cheap mug and decorate it to go along with the slogan “Mugs not Drugs”. We will also have many surprise visuals set up to help you remember and understand the projects we are working on.
Teens can join the conversation surrounding NDAFW now through the hashtag #NPW2020 and stay informed about drug and alcohol facts and events in Carter County by following Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition on Facebook and Instagram.
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Building Better Brains, One Kid at a Time
By Reece Townsend, CCDP SADD Club
Our SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Club learns about a different community issue or problem each week so that we can have the knowledge to eventually create a project tok help change one of these issues.
In class one week, we learned about Adverse Childhood Experiences and received the “Building Strong Brains” training. I reached out to an expert in this field to share more with you.
Becky Haas says, “The Adverse childhood experiences study was done in 1997-1998 by two doctors in California. What they learned is when we experience trauma or abuse as a child the more of it we experience without having caring and supportive family, friends, teachers, etc to help cope then many times a people choose unhealthy coping mechanisms like smoking, drugs, eating disorders, etc.”
Haas is the trauma Informed Administrator for Ballad Health. In this role, she is expanding education, research and programming as well as working to help Ballad become a trauma informed health system. She says, “Our programs at Ballad Health are to raise awareness to this fact in the community and among our own staff in order to find new ways to connect people to healthy relationships.”
She provides training and technical assistance to police, educators, mental health and healthcare. Becky is a national presenter on trauma informed care with recent presentations to Delaware state leadership for the First Lady of Delaware, training the Oklahoma City Police Department and presenting at Duke Divinity School’s Conference on Medicine and Religion. She has also been an ordained minister since 1996 and in 2017 authored her first book, Your City Is Waiting On You.
I asked Mrs. Haas what she would like you to know. She said, “I would want families to understand how much of a protective factor it is for not only children and teens but also adults to make sure you have 3-4 healthy, supportive relationships that you regularly have contact with. Also that people around you need those as well so you need to be one for them.”
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Click for more info:
Monthly coalition meetings for April and May will be held via Zoom.
Join April here:
https://zoom.us/j/4348480678
Meeting ID: 434 848 0678
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+13126266799,,4348480678# US (Chicago)
+16465588656,,4348480678# US (New York)
Join May here:
https://zoom.us/j/925125943
Meeting ID: 925 125 943
One tap mobile
+16465588656,,925125943# US (New York)
+13126266799,,925125943# US (Chicago)
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