The SKP Resilience Coalition shared updates on their youth initiatives at the Aug. 25 Homer City Council meeting, after students across the district began the school year earlier this month.
Coalition coordinator Hannah Gustafson said that after 10 years of work, the coalition recently updated its vision to create a community where youth feel safe, supported, and cared for through positive relationships. She said the coalition is a collaborative effort of individuals and organizations throughout the community, all working together toward this shared vision. The leadership team is made up of representatives from South Peninsula Behavioral Health Services, Haven House, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, and South Peninsula Hospital, as well as local youth representatives.
Gustafson said that some of the avenues they’ve created to sustain this vision of a healthy community for youth include fostering a “Homer Out-of-School Time (HOST)” program, which works to sustain existing and create new enrichment opportunities for K-12 youth during out-of-school time hours. She said as a result of this collaboration, they are in the process of hiring a physician to serve as a youth activities coordinator for the program. The coordinator will be working out of the South Peninsula Behavioral Health Services organization and Gustafson said they are currently hiring for the position.
“This is truly a collaborative effort of all different partners bringing pieces of the puzzle together to create a homegrown solution,” she said.
Anna Meredith, youth project manager for the coalition, said that one of the things she’s seen come out of the coalition is Teen Mental Health First Aid, which came about primarily because young people were asking for mental health supports both through the schools and in the community. She said they’ve implemented the program with young people through Project Grad and Homer Flex High School and are in the process of implementing it within Homer High School and Seldovia.
“The cool thing about this is that it provides an opportunity for an extensive amount of time for young people to focus and freely share and talk about mental health,” said Meredith. “And that’s really the biggest feedback, is that kids share that they appreciate the time and just having a place to talk about it that’s safe.”
Another resource the coalition has worked on is a comprehensive, online calendar of events for all youth programming and services, called “Where Can I?”. Meredith said the website is “youth-created,” and born of a collaboration between the coalition and the local branch of youth court, with data entry maintained by teenage staff members.
Lastly, Meredith said, Planet Youth Homer is facilitated by a group of people within the community who want to help youth live their best lives. She said it’s a grassroots community effort using the Icelandic Prevention Model to create a safe and supportive environment where youth have healthy experiences and get the care they need as they grow. She noted that the Icelandic Prevention Model has been highly effective at reducing substance misuse rates in Iceland and is currently used in more than 34 countries around the world. Additionally, the prevention model approach is fully adaptable to each community and its perceived needs. In the Matanuska-Susitna region, Meredith said there’s a program called Youth360 that’s been operating for over six years, and Seward has also created its own group, using the model. But in order to facilitate the model to Homer’s needs, they need data on what those needs are.
In order to gather that data, the coalition, working closely with the school district and some homeschool programs in the area, has created a questionnaire that will be offered at the end of September. Meredith said they’re inviting all ninth, 10th and 11th grade students to participate, with the chance to enter to win a drawing for prizes from 10 local businesses.
“What’s required is guardian consent,” she said, addressing the council. “PowerSchool registration is how folks can do that for the school district. It’s a part of the online enrollment process.”
Meredith said the coalition will continue community outreach events throughout September, including supporting the local booster club by flipping burgers at the burger shack during homecoming.
“We really want folks to get involved. Even if you don’t have young people in your lives right now, this is an opportunity to support them from afar.”
Meredith said that once they complete the questionnaire and get the data back from Planet Youth Iceland, the results will be community-owned and accessible. The processing time is an estimated six to eight weeks.
Those interested in becoming involved in the initiative can reach youth project manager, Anna Meredith, at anna@elementalconsulting.solutions.
Monthly meetings of the coalition are hosted on the second Wednesday of the month at Kachemak Bay College campus and are additionally accessible by Zoom.
