Horizons Radio Show goes live with call-in

This morning Julia Hesse interviewed Terrina Beatty about maintaining a happy healthy heart. The show, Horizons Radio, was on our local public radio station, KSJD.

Latest "Believe It" poster released

We've just got the next batch of posters up at various locations around Montezuma County. So keep an eye out for the new orange "Believe It" poster when you're out and around!

In other news, SCYC representatives recently attended a regional meeting of Four Corners organizations trying to use positive outreach messages in their communities. The training was headed up by Jeff Linkenbach, PhD, who is perhaps best known for the "Most of Us" campaign work he has done in Montana.

Linkenbach tries to get communities to focus on the positive, that is, what most of us are doing right, instead of what a few of us may be doing wrong. The goal isn't to ignore negative behavior, but to encourage positive behavior as a model, because, although it is true that most people in a community are usually behaving well, frequently the community perception is the opposite. If more community members know that most of us know where our kids go after school, or most of us enforce a curfew, then maybe even more of us will start doing those things.

Believe It Campaign Update

Well, we're about half way through our nine-message campaign to make positive information about our community available to the public.

This particular positive norms campaign (we call it the "Believe It" campaign) highlights the positive ways in which parents interact with their children, with a particular focus on how parents are powerful influences on keeping their kids away from drugs and alcohol. The latest message lets readers know that "8 out of 10 students in Montezuma County have an adult in their life who believes they will be a success."

All of these messages are supported by parent and student surveys completed in Montezuma and Dolores Counties in 2007 and 2008, so the data is real and relevant to our community. Keep an eye out at your local grocery store, recreation center, school, or library for the "Believe It" campaign posters that the School Community Youth Coalition is putting out into the community.