The Power of Prevention - Going Upstream
by: Benjamin Meier, Director of Prevention
Imagine that you are walking along a riverbank, enjoying being in nature. Suddenly, you hear a panicked voice call out for help. You look toward the voice and see that someone has fallen in the river and is struggling against the current. You jump in and pull them to safety, and just as both of you are catching your breath, you see two more people struggling to stay afloat in the water. You and the rescued jump in and save those two. You look upstream to see that there is a great number of people coming down the river. Thinking on your feet, you tell those on the bank with you to jump in and pull out everyone you can while you head upstream to figure out why so many have fallen into the river.
This is the perfect picture of prevention. We need people saving those within the river, but we can often overlook the importance of looking upstream to find and work on the source of the initial struggle. A major focus of Mirror, Inc is this upstream prevention, offering evidence-based strategies to buffer young people – future adults – from the present and future risks of substance misuse.
Mirror’s prevention department mobilizes local leaders to create real change in the people around them. Through coalition creation and mobilization, Mirror’s prevention team pulls together all sectors of a population toward creating a healthy, substance free environment for their youth. Through environmental strategies like wide-spread messaging and education, changing consequences and physical environment, and modifying local policies, leaders can work toward long-term solutions to youth substance use. When youth experience a positive and protected environment growing up, research shows that they are buffered from the risks of substance use.
Using proven research-based efforts, Mirror staff work on sustainable solutions to risk factors such as boosting neighborhood attachment, changing the availability of drugs and alcohol, providing tools for families to have conversations about substances, and organizing the community to make it easier to address challenges. Creating clear standards, increasing attachment to school and family, and rewarding involvement create an environment that encourages healthy behaviors and protects young people. Through various evidence-based programming like Life of an Athlete and Teen Intervene, schools are partnering with Mirror, Inc to change their standards for the youth they work with.
Not only are local adults and leaders involved in creating these substantial changes, but perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle is the population of focus: youth. As a vision of Mirror, Inc, STAND works with youth to educate, empower, and mobilize them to create real and lasting change among their peers. Through STAND’s evidence-based structure, youth leaders are given opportunities to shift the norms in the realms of substance use and mental health, leading the charge in creating effective messaging, creative strategies, and partnerships to pursue their mission of creating a healthier and more positive environment for those that come after them. High school students work in their schools and towns to spread positivity, educate younger students, and create a new norm of healthy living. Not only are they impacting those around them, but they are serving their community in a new and creative way that will outlast their time there. STAND leaders have been recognized on local, state, and even national levels for their work, receiving the Kansas Hospital Association’s Distinguished Health Care Advocate Award and the Health Care Heroes Award from the Wichita Business Journal in 2022.
Through community mobilization of youth and adults, Mirror, Inc is creating local movements, changing the norms around substance use and mental health. Research shows the longer a young person puts off initiating any substance, the less of a chance it will develop into a problem in adulthood. It is a community’s responsibility to go upstream to protect their youth as they cross this bridge into adulthood. Mirror’s prevention team can help change the path, fix the bridge, and do what it takes to create a safer, healthier road to lead young people to success on the other side of the river. We look forward to furthering our impact and would love to partner and collaborate with community organizations and schools across the state of Kansas. Please reach out to us if you feel moved to help make a difference.
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” - Margaret Wheatley