promoting healthy youth

& family development

It is the mission of the Rockbridge Area Prevention Coalition to
reduce substance abuse among youth in the Rockbridge area

by increasing community awareness of substance use and other prevention related issues
and by promoting a comprehensive network of prevention and intervention services and resources.

To promote protective factors and decrease risk factors in order to help build healthy youth, families, and communities in the Rockbridge area, using a variety of strategies including, education, information, dissemination, facilitation of community-based processes,
provision of healthy alternatives, problem identification and referral, and
promotion of positive environmental change.

To reduce substance use and engagement in other risky behaviors among youth and, over time, among adults by addressing the factors in the Rockbridge area that increase these risks
and promoting the factors that minimize them.

The key to success...

is working together

to ensure that all of our children and families

have opportunities to live in health and well being.

HISTORY

The Rockbridge Area Prevention Task Force (RAPTF) was created in 1996 to help reduce the duplication of services in our communities by enabling a group of community members and service providers to work together in the assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of Prevention Services in our local community.  The original members were from agencies, schools, churches, etc., that served the youth in the communities of Rockbridge County, Lexington, and Buena Vista.

In 2008, the Task Force underwent a name change as part of a community awareness effort and to highlight the permanent nature of the group’s efforts. As part of its capacity building strategies, the newly named Rockbridge Area Prevention Coalition (RAPC) continues to seek the involvement of parents, students, and other organizations that are interested in prevention activities for the Rockbridge Area, especially related to youth and their parents.  RAPC also works to avoid duplication of planning groups, assessments, and services in the community in order to maximize the community’s resources.  One of RAPC’s primary roles is to serve as a clearinghouse of information and resources that can help various agencies and community groups in their efforts related to prevention.

ORGANIZATIONAL PURPOSE

RAPC is organized as a community coalition -- a formal arrangement for cooperation and collaboration between groups or sectors of the greater Rockbridge community, in which each group retains its identity but all agree to work together toward the common goal of building a safe, healthy, and drug-free community. As such, the coalition is expected to bring communities together and give them the forum and focus necessary to identify and address local substance use problems. By bringing together local leaders to focus on local problems, it is the intent that the coalition will create lasting changes in the community environment.

THE COMMUNITY PREVENTION PLAN

Every year RAPC holds an Annual Meeting to review the current Prevention Plan and to review goals and objectives for the next fiscal year.  The plan is based on local data regarding risk factors and identifies strategies to reduce risk factors and promote protective factors in our communities.  The plan is guided by specific Virginia State requirements, which may change to some extent each year.  In preparing for and in implementing the plan, RAPC works together to survey the community about the problems facing our youth and programs needed to combat the most concerning risks.

The Community Prevention Plan recognizes five key strategies to reduce the risk of substance abuse and related problems in the Rockbridge area, including Information Dissemination, Prevention Education, Alternative Activities, Community Based Process, and Environmental Strategies.

RAPC meets on the 2nd Wednesday of the month at Rockbridge Area Community Services,

241 Greenhouse Road, from 1:00-2:00. All meetings are open to the public.

To view our most recent meeting minutes (please click here)

To find out more about RAPC, contact:

Wendy C. Morgan, MA, Coalition Facilitator at

540.462.6640

wmorgan@racsb.org

or

  LauraJane Wilson, BA, Prevention Coordinator at

540.462.6639

ljwilson@racsb.org