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Build a Stronger Community: Join the Better Ways to Cope Movement!

One of the key reasons to join BWTC is the abundance of free resources available in the toolkit. These materials and guidance are designed to help launch local initiatives, making it easier for communities to take proactive steps toward addressing substance misuse. The multi-faceted approach of BWTC ensures that all aspects of substance misuse, from prevention to recovery, are addressed, providing a comprehensive approach to healing. This comprehensive approach ensures that the community is equipped with the tools and knowledge needed to tackle substance misuse effectively. Engaging local leaders, organizations, and residents in the BWTC initiative and implementing the strategies provided in the toolkit can help in launching programs, raising awareness, and connecting people with support services in your community.

Let's work together to spread the message of the Better Ways to Cope campaign in our communities! Together, we can build a future where everyone has access to the tools they need to cope in a healthy way.

Use our Toolkit Explainer below as a roadblock for advancing change in your community!

Use these stories as a springboard to build stronger, more supportive communities.

To spark conversation and inspire real-world solutions, we engaged local community members, interviewed experts via radio platforms, invited social media influencers to share their coping strategies via pre-recorded videos.

We encourage you to leverage platforms to create resources for your communities. Find experts, leaders and influencers to have transparent conversations about mental health, substance use, and healthy coping strategies. Use your local news stations, radio shows, podcasts, commercials and newspapers to promote easily digestible content about mental health and substance abuse resources, conversations about recovery journeys and strategies for coping with life's challenges.

Leveraging Social Media and Audio Platforms for Wellness Promotion

Here's how you can utilize the mentioned platforms to share prevention and wellness information:

Audio-Based Platforms:

Podcasts: Create a podcast focused on mental health and well-being. Interview experts, share personal stories of recovery, and discuss healthy coping mechanisms.
Clubhouse/Twitter Spaces/Spotify Greenroom/Discord: Host live audio sessions on topics like stress management, healthy relationships, and substance abuse prevention. Invite mental health professionals or community members with lived experience to participate.

Audio Platform Interview Ideas for Mental Health and Coping:

"Coping Skills That Work": Interview a therapist or counselor on practical coping mechanisms for managing stress, anxiety, and everyday challenges.
"Local Heroes of Mental Health": Feature a community member who has overcome a mental health struggle and now uses healthy coping mechanisms.
"Mind Your Body": Discuss the link between physical and mental health with a local doctor or fitness professional. Explore how exercise and healthy habits can improve mental well-being.
"Teens Talk Mental Health": Organize a panel discussion with teenagers and a mental health professional to address the specific challenges and resources available to young people.
"Substance Abuse Prevention: A Community Conversation": Invite a representative from a local addiction treatment center to discuss the signs of substance abuse and available resources for help.

Tips for Sharing Prevention and Wellness Information:

Compelling Content: Craft engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Use storytelling, humor, or visuals to make the information relatable and memorable.
Credibility: Cite credible sources like mental health organizations or research studies to back up your claims.
Positive Focus: Promote hope and resilience. Share success stories and focus on the positive outcomes of healthy coping mechanisms.
Community Building: Interact with your audience, respond to comments, and answer questions. Foster a sense of community and support.
Call to Action: Clearly state what action you want your audience to take, whether it's visiting a website for resources, attending a support group meeting, or simply sharing the information with others.

Local Influencers: Champions for Community Wellness

Local influencers hold a unique position of trust and relatability within their communities. They can be powerful advocates for promoting prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services related to substance abuse and mental health. By harnessing the power of local influencers and their willingness to be vulnerable, communities can create a more supportive environment where individuals feel empowered to seek help and prioritize their well-being. This can lead to a significant increase in access to prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services. Here are examples of how you can use social media platforms to share your message:

Nextdoor: Share information about local mental health resources, support groups, and wellness events happening in your neighborhood.
Facebook Groups: Create or join Facebook groups dedicated to mental health and wellness. Share educational articles, inspirational stories, and host discussions on relevant topics.
YouTube Channel: Create a YouTube channel with videos on coping mechanisms, mindfulness exercises, and the benefits of healthy habits. Partner with influencers or mental health professionals for content creation.
Reddit Talks: Participate in conversations on Reddit subreddits focused on mental health or specific wellness topics. Share resources, answer questions, and promote healthy coping mechanisms.

Leveraging Local Connections:

Awareness Campaigns: Partner with local influencers to create campaigns that raise awareness about available resources. This could involve social media posts, community events, or collaboration with local businesses.
Destigmatization: By openly discussing their own experiences or struggles (if comfortable), local influencers can normalize seeking help and break down the stigma surrounding mental health and substance abuse.
Accessibility: Local influencers can highlight the accessibility of local services. They can showcase the facilities, interview staff, or share stories of positive experiences within the local treatment network.

5 Interview Topics to Consider:

Challenges Faced: Explore the common stressors and difficulties faced by community members. Let them share what initially led them to consider substance use as a coping mechanism.
Turning Points: Focus on the moments of realization or intervention that prompted individuals to seek healthier coping strategies.
Support Systems: Highlight the role of supportive friends, family, or community resources in their journey towards healthier coping.
Benefits of Change: Explore the positive changes in mental and physical well-being, relationships, and overall life quality experienced by adopting healthier coping mechanisms.

The Power of Vulnerability:

Role Models: When local influencers share their vulnerabilities, they set a powerful example for others. Seeing someone they know and admire speak openly about their struggles can inspire others to do the same.
Starting the Conversation: By starting the conversation, local influencers can encourage open dialogue within the community about mental health and substance abuse. This can break down isolation and empower people to seek help.
Building Trust: Vulnerability fosters trust and connection. When local influencers share their stories, they build trust with their audience, making them more receptive to messages about prevention and recovery resources.

Leverage our impact for inspiration in your community.

Over the past three years, we've regranted more than 5 Million state-funded dollars to 26 agencies across 3 municipalities. Each agency promoted the Better Ways to Cope Campaign through results-driven prevention programs for Spanish-speaking people, impoverished communities, veterans, young people, religious communities and people living with substance use dependencies.

We invite you to check out a few of the projects we've highlighted and contact these agencies for more information. You might not be able to regrant state funding, but you can volunteer time, share your talents, promote efforts and give what you can.

Better Ways to Cope Campaign Overview

Watch the BWTC Campaign Overview video featuring organizations with lead prevention initiatives in Milwaukee County.

RUNNING REBELS COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

Milwaukee County Behavioral Health has partnered with Running Rebels, to encourage teens to talk about drugs and alcohol with friends and family (“frienderventions”). Together, we've created the campaign “Mission Over Addiction." The goal is to destigmatize addiction and encourage teens to talk openly about their relationship to alcohol and other drugs. The campaign shares, signs that a friend or family member has an addiction, provides a quiz to determine alcohol or drug dependency, provides information on the risks of drugs and alcohol, provides steps to have a successful “friendervention” so teens can talk to their peers and provides resources, including a Hotline, for kids and youth care workers to call and get help from professionals.

Encourage youth in your community to use their creativity to reach their peers. Check out their music video and cartoon below.

MACK THEATER GROUP

The Mack Theater Group utilized the transformative power of theater and education to rehabilitate and empower at-risk youth and young adults involved in Wisconsin's criminal legal system. Through an infusion of prevention education into their professional mentorship, life skills training, and artistic expression programming, they were able to break the cycle of incarceration, reduce substance misuse, and foster holistic well-being. Better Ways to Cope helped strengthen their collaborations with professionals, subject matter experts and partnerships to reduce recidivism, address behavioral health issues and make a lasting impact on our community.

Check out their impact and leverage your resources to impact justice-involved youth who have a higher likelihood of coping with substance use.

CHANGING HANDS

Changing Hands believes in a holistic approach that encompasses economic upliftment, character development, aspirational growth, and academic enhancement. The BWTC funded "Changing Hands Steps Forward Substance-Free" initiative aimed to curb the rising tide of substance misuse among Milwaukee Youth. They provided youth with engaging mentorship programs, recreational activities, and community involvement, replacing the void often filled by drugs and alcohol with constructive, fulfilling experiences. As a result, they decreased the number of young individuals drawn to substance misuse, providing them with healthier coping mechanisms and a community that supports their substance-free choices.

Check out their program overview video and find cool ways to provide alternatives to substance use in your community.

TRUE SKOOL

TRUE Skool’s Better Me Better Everything media campaign received funding from Milwaukee County's Better Way's To Cope Campaign to share hip-hop centric messaging and language around intervention, prevention, and personal wellness related to substance abuse and addiction. This campaign spreads a transformative mantra of self-respect and consideration for everything and everyone around True School members. It inspired a collection of creative content produced by youth, young adults, alumni and other established Artists in Milwaukee that live in or come from the most disinvested neighborhoods. Throughout the gallery of mixed mediums, including visual art, animation and song, are stories of trials and elevation composed to inspire participation in their own personal betterment, generating a natural ripple effect of positive intervention in our communities.

Check out the Better Me Better Everything albums below and use them to curate creative arts spaces in your community.

FRESH START

Fresh Start Learning extended support to women leaving human trafficking and domestic violence by providing substance abuse prevention and recovery programs. Executive Director Nancy Yarbrough and co-facilitators led multiple substance abuse workshops for participants and distributed resource-filled purses to women in high-need areas.

Take inspiration and identify opportunities to engage recovery people in your community.

Living the Sober Life Program from Neo Soul Productions on Vimeo.

PPI Community Advocates

Community Advocates worked with Therapist and Trainer Ana Paula Soares, MS, LPC to develop a culturally relevant, evidence-based/informed Spanish-language substance misuse prevention and mental health curriculum utilizing the “Escucha Tus Emociones” campaign. As a result, they have witnessed the success of this curriculum, with over 30 health “promotores” delivering the curriculum to adult community members.

Take inspiration from Escucha Tus Emociones and identify opportunities to engage minority populations in your community.

Partner with experts to educate community members and youth and family-serving organizations on prevention and coping.

We recognize how important it is to ensure communities have the information needed to prevent overdoses and promote better ways to cope with life's struggles. We partnered with TTJ Group and SheRay's & Associates to ensure community members and youth and family-serving organizations had foundational knowledge of prevention. Community members enjoyed free access to 7 virtual training led by prevention experts from across the country. Those training were broken down into micro-learning videos with handouts for communities to use as teaching tools.

Here's how you can gain the most out of these learning videos:

Watch the training videos below. Click on the playlist icon in the upper right-hand corner for additional training videos to be revealed.
Download the handouts for each video. Answer the discussion questions and follow the action steps.

Training Handouts

Click the button to view/download PDF files for each training.

Here are ideas on how to effectively utilize these virtual training videos to raise awareness and equip your community with the knowledge to combat substance abuse.

1. Staff Training: Sharpen Your Team's Skills

Boost Staff Knowledge: Host staff meetings where you screen these training videos to equip staff at schools, youth organizations, and community centers to effectively support individuals at risk.
Practice Makes Perfect: Develop scenarios based on these training videos, followed by group discussions and role-plays. Empower staff to practice educating others on the information shared in these videos.

2. Student Groups: Knowledge is Power

Integrate into Curriculum: Supplement health education classes with these videos that address the science of addiction, warning signs of substance use, and healthy coping mechanisms.
Spark Dialogue: Facilitate discussions after video screenings. Encourage students to ask questions, share their understanding, and connect the information to their experiences. This fosters critical thinking and promotes open communication.

3. Community Organizations: Building a Supportive Network

Public Awareness Campaigns: Organize community events and screenings focused on substance use prevention. Utilize these virtual training videos to spark conversations and provide information to attendees.
Resource Fairs in Action: Partner with local treatment centers and support groups to host resource fairs. Showcase thee training videos alongside informational booths, offering a comprehensive learning experience.

4. Faith-Based Organizations: Fostering Resilience

Adult Education with Impact: Incorporate these training videos into adult education or faith-based programs. Equip members with knowledge to support loved ones struggling with substance use and promote healthy habits within their communities.
Empowering Youth: Utilize these age-appropriate training videos within youth ministry programs to discuss the dangers of substance use. Focus on building positive peer relationships, promoting healthy lifestyle choices, and creating a safe space for open dialogue.

5. Personal Growth: Empowering Yourself and Your Loved Ones

Individual Learning: Encourage community members to utilize these training videos for personal growth. These videos can provide valuable insights into substance use risks, helping individuals make informed decisions and identify healthy coping mechanisms.
Open Communication at Home: Utilize these training videos as a springboard for open family discussions about the dangers of substance use. Foster open communication and create a supportive environment where individuals feel comfortable seeking help if needed.

Remember:

Variety is Key: Choose virtual training videos that cater to different learning styles and age groups.
Spark Curiosity: Encourage questions and discussions after video screenings.
Connect with Resources: Always include contact information for local treatment centers and support groups at the end of your presentations.
Promote Accessibility: Ensure chosen videos are closed-captioned for inclusivity.

Use our promotional resources to promote Better Ways to Cope in your community!

Find a whole community of resources.

Better Ways to Cope (BWTC) is a community-centered harm reduction, prevention, treatment and recovery campaign powered by the Department of Health and Human Services. This multi-faceted movement uses media platforms to promote services, regrants funds to community organizations, shares resources with community members and equips everyone with the skills to cope in a better way.]

Find Better Ways to Cope Resources