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\u201cLakes Area Community Coalition was formed in April 2016 by members of a local Families Against Narcotics (FAN) chapter,\u201d said the coalition\u2019s Executive Director\u00a0Joan Baert<\/strong>. \u201cWe grew quickly and were DFC funded in 2018. We serve the Walled Lake Consolidated School District and the communities of Walled Lake, Wixom, Wolverine Lake and Commerce Township in southwest Oakland County, Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn order to meet the needs of the community, we listened to our Youth Action Board and heard that they were most concerned about teen mental health right now,\u201d said Baert. \u201cWe heard that our young people were extremely stressed by being isolated with their family members and away from friends, teachers and positive peer group activities like athletics and music. We also listened to our sector representatives and heard that they were concerned with an uptick in adult substance misuse in the home, the normalization of excessive alcohol use and increased traffic at our local marijuana retailers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are encouraged that people want to help during this time,\u201d said Baert. \u201cWe\u2019ve had greater attendance at many of our Zoom meetings than we\u2019d been seeing at our in-person meetings prior to COVID-19.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur youth are pushing out positive mental health and sobriety messages through their Instagram feeds, creating relevant content for their peers,\u201d said Baert. \u201cThey helped us create \u2018coping kits,\u2019 which are small bags with helpful tools such as a stress ball, a fidget toy, dark chocolate and green tea with a card explaining their health benefits, a short mindfulness routine card, a magnet with local crisis line numbers and a coping card with student-developed tips for stress management. The coping kits are being distributed to families who pick up food boxes at our local food bank.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our local mental health care providers is working with us to promote a special mental health care package for school staff members,\u201d said Baert. \u201cOur media sector representative worked with us to produce a feature story in our local paper on sobriety during quarantine and the risk of addiction during this time of isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur social media and website traffic are way up,\u201d said Baert. \u201cWe are creating a series of \u2018ask the expert\u2019 videos featuring our local pediatricians, psychologists and people in recovery with messages promoting healthy stress management and warning of the dangers of substance misuse. Engaging our local experts in this way increased their commitment to our work and expanded our reach as they shared the videos out on their networks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur work has moved online and it has been challenging to adapt to a new model,\u201d said Baert. \u201cWe are also sad and disappointed to have many of our really great in-person programs cancelled or postponed.\u00a0\u00a0However, the need for prevention has never been greater in our community and we are committed to adapting our work to meet that need, whatever the future brings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur advice to other coalitions facing the challenges associated with working during the COVID-19 pandemic would be to ask questions and listen carefully to your community,\u201d said Baert. \u201cThey know what is needed and they also know how to help. Now is the time to try something \u2018out of the box,\u2019 You might be thrilled to find a whole new direction to take your prevention work that really impacts your community.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cLakes Area Community Coalition was formed in April 2016 by members of a local Families Against Narcotics (FAN) chapter,\u201d said<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":3188,"template":"","resource_type":[281,289],"drug_specific_issues":[],"action_to_do":[],"class_list":["post-17149","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","resource_type-coalitions-online","resource_type-covid-19"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n