This panel discussion from Crisis Intervention Training is just a small part of the projects being organized by Live Well Daviess County. Provided image
A group with branches that reach throughout Daviess County is trying to make for a better community. Live Well Daviess County made a presentation this week to the Daviess County Commissioners and council.
“This was my first time learning about that,” said Daviess County Council President Matt Meredith. “They are involved in a lot of important things. It was eye-opening to see how expansive it is.”
Live Well Daviess County is coordinated by the Purdue Extension Office and officials describe it as a wide-ranging coalition that is looking to improve life in Daviess County.
“We try to collaborate with organizations to work toward collective goals in the community,” said Purdue Extension Wellness Coordinator Ashlee Sudbury. “Live Well is relatively new. Around 2018 we had the Hometown Collaboration Initiative so we started hearing about health and how you can tie that to the development going on downtown. We needed to create plan to address community needs like affordable housing, drug abuse and mental health services.”
The coalition has three active action teams. They include physical activity and nutrition, access to health care and mental health and substance abuse.
The effort for mental health and substance abuse has been particularly effective in bringing money and projects into the county. Organizers say that more than $1 million in grants have been received in the last couple of years.
“We saw a great need for that in our community with people having those related issues and just not for sure where to seek access for treatment and services,” said Daviess County Community Corrections Executive Diana Snyder, who serves on the Live Well committee. “We have developed a consortium of community partners to come together to look at the areas of substance abuse and mental health in Daviess County and where can we go to advance the access to care for those individuals because a lot of people don’t know where to go or how to access that and we want to make sure that information is readily available.”
The efforts have created a sustainable peer-to-peer treatment organization and helped develop the recent mental health crisis intervention training, and there is more on the horizon.
“We are looking to create a recovery hub in our community which will be a location where individuals can go to seek help, whether they want to look for in-place treatment,” said Snyder. “They want to look for an AA meeting. They want to find a peer recovery coach. They want to find some classes or training. We have some big goals and ideas of that over the next three years.”
Meanwhile, another arm of the organization is bringing in a state grant to improve nutrition for expectant and recent mothers.
“One of those is a food is medicine pilot program,” said Sudbury. “We are looking at a produce prescription. It is basically that if someone is seeking medical care but their diet is an issue, rather than writing them a medical prescription and writing that off, to try to get to the root of how to get people engaged with that whole health function.”
By working with the Produce Patch, Daviess Community Hospital, and RSVP Volunteer Center the plan is to begin making healthy food boxes with education available to about 20 families. The project is expected to begin in either May or June.
Live Well Daviess County has also been involved in an effort to help the community work with and understand its immigrant community. That group has expressed concerns about access to housing and medical care.
Purdue Extension Community Development Director Cindy Barber told the joint commissioners-council meeting that there are also a number of health initiatives underway including an updated health assessment.
“It’s exciting,” Barber told the county officials. “We kind of get down in the work and we realize we don’t communicate as much as we should. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share that with you.”
The officials seemed to be equally excited about what the organization is accomplishing.
“They are involved in a number of programs with the goal of helping people live happy, healthy lives and it looks like they have a great start,” said Commissioner Nathan Gabhart. “It was interesting to see some of the specific things they are dealing with and some of the community members they are interacting with.”
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