Welcome to Wellness Wednesday, presented by Orange Partnership and airing on 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com!
In the first featured conversation, join James Osborn, director of education and outreach for Alliance Health, and Mary Hondermann, communications manager for El Futuro, in a discussion with 97.9 The Hill’s Andrew Stuckey! You can listen to the full conversation below:
Both Alliance Health and El Futuro are part of the Orange Partnership community coalition. Working together, Orange Partnership aims to reduce youth substance abuse and improve the mental and physical health of Orange County’s young people.
“We’re a collaboration, a group, a coalition of community agencies, community members, schools and organizations in Orange County,” said Osborn. “We believe in environmental types of strategies to prevent and reduce youth use of substances and to promote protective factors and mitigate risk factors that might lead to substance use.”
Cooperation and understanding go a long way toward solving issues in any community, whether that’s pooling resources to help younger populations avoid pitfalls or bringing people together to share experiences and advice.
“We meet, we learn from each other, we support each other,” said Hondermann. “We review statistics regarding youth substance use. We combine efforts to create strategies that address substance use in the youth and teens in the community. We basically bring our different expertise and we share that expertise, together. We combine our efforts to create a healthier future for the youth.”
September is Suicide Prevention Month, and keeping the mental health of teens and young folks far and wide top-of-mind goes a long way toward providing help where and when it’s needed.
“When people become intoxicated with alcohol or drugs, that increases the likelihood that they might engage in additional risk factors,” said Osborn. “Also, as we’re talking about youth, many of us think about what we might have done in our youth. So age is a factor, as are genetics and personality. There’s also some correlation between this and post-traumatic stress disorder that also, again, have correlations between anxiety, depression, substance use, all of those factors — along with domestic violence increasing during COVID and continues to be high on the list contributing to [negative effects on] youth mental health.”
Wellness Wednesday, presented by Orange Partnership, showcases a new conversation on the first Wednesday of each month airing on 97.9 The Hill, with the full series posted on Chapelboro. Meet local organizations working together to prevent underage drinking and drug use, and help young people in our community live healthy and productive lives through awareness, compassion, consideration and positive action!
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