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Back to Prevention Stories
H.E. Barbershop Talks
Hosted by:
Holistic Evolution
Please briefly describe your Communities Talk activity.
The Communities Talk activity that we hosted was one of our H.E. Barbershop Talks, featuring police officers, young men of color 16–24 years old, and a mental health professional, who facilitated the conversation on positive and negative coping strategies and how culture impacts these coping strategies. This is the unedited version of the H.E. Barbershop Talk: https://youtu.be/6jJfWEnQpkI.
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
Holistic Evolution currently focuses our efforts in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties in Indiana. We are in a unique position when it comes to delaying the onset of marijuana use. We border Illinois and Michigan, both of whom have some form of legal use for marijuana. Our communities have a very transient population with the ability to drive from Illinois to Michigan in less than two hours. This makes it difficult for enforcement efforts. In 2020, Lake County had 26.2 opioid overdose deaths per 100,000, Porter County had 21.4 deaths, and LaPorte County had a whooping 35.7 deaths per 100,000, according to the Indiana Department of Health. You may follow this link to view our complete community needs assessment and view additional drug use trends: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEihwsYlPw/8EgwEMjtGY9OPiWehUbFNw/view?utm_content=DAEihwsYlPw&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor.
Which prevention strategy(ies), as defined by SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, best fit your Communities Talk activity?
- Environmental Strategy - focuses on establishing or changing community standards, codes, and attitudes thereby influencing incidence and prevalence of alcohol and other drug use within the community. The strategy depends on engaging a broad base of community partners, focuses on places and specific problems, and emphasizes public policy.
- Community-Based Process Strategy - focuses on enhancing the capacity of the community to address AOD issues through organizing, planning, collaboration, coalition building, and networking.
What goal(s) did you hope to accomplish with your Communities Talk activity?
- Hold meetings or discussion groups on alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention.
- Increase sobriety and traffic safety checkpoints.
- We use the H.E. barbershop talks to promote positive coping strategies via social messaging campaigns and educate the community on prevention science strategies.
Did you accomplish your goal(s)?
Yes
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Needed additional resources to conduct activity
- We would like to implement this culturally responsive activity at a wider scale, to reach more communities and community members, but lack financial resources to do so it at the level we would like.
How did you overcome these challenges?
We have continued to work with other entities to obtain funding to support the environmental strategy of social messaging. We secured funding from the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction, but that funding has ended, with our population primary prevention strategy reaching 949,040 people in 2023.
What are your next steps?
- Host follow-up meetings or activities
- Expand our coalition with new partnerships in the community
- Conduct research efforts to learn more about issues in our community
- Create a public education campaign to raise awareness and/or change behaviors around underage drinking (i.e., create PSAs and other promotional materials)
- We took nine months to complete our five-year strategic plan, which we will reveal to the community on November 15 via Zoom. We are looking to our community for opportunities to fund all of our community-level prevention strategies.
If you’ve conducted Communities Talk activities in prior years, how has your repeated participation contributed to progress in achieving your prevention goals?
We have not conducted multiple Communities Talk activities.
Organizations that conduct Communities Talk activities often involve other organizations in the planning and execution of events. Please indicate which type(s) of organizations you involved in your activity planning.
- Law enforcement
- Youth-led organizations
- Charitable organizations
- Local businesses
- State and local government agencies (e.g., public health departments)
Which of the following best describes the primary audience(s) for your Communities Talk activity?
- Youth
- Prevention specialists and volunteers
- Youth leaders (e.g., coaches, parks and recreation personnel, and scouting leaders)
- The media
- Black or African American community members
- Hispanic community members
How did you reach and engage your primary audience(s) to encourage them to participate in your activity?
I personally called stakeholders and asked them to come out and participate.
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- Prevention-related webinars
- Communities Talk social media content (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
- It is necessary to look at what has worked before attempting to do things on your own.
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