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CTC moves ahead

HOUGHTON – Communities That Care (CTC) conducted its second training session recently, according to Ginny Machiela, CTC coordinator. The two-part Community Board training session was held at Shelden Grill, at the Magnuson Hotel in Houghton. Machiela was pleased with the second phase of organizing the CTC program in Houghton and Keweenaw Counties.

“We had about 45 people for the board itself, but about 20 of those people couldn’t make one or the other of the training (sessions),” Machiela said, “so, total, we had 28 at the first session and 26 at the second.”

For those people who could not be present for both training sessions, there will be make-up training sessions. There will be more three-hour sessions throughout the year, Machiela said, probably one or two per month, as CTC will continuously recruit more members.

“We have on-going educational opportunities all the time, because we will always be recruiting for new membership,” Machiela said. “People will always have an opportunity to get that initial training. It won’t be as big as the first training, because that was actually getting the whole board together.”

Machiela said in addition to parents and a number of teachers, there were a number of people from various agencies on hand. Some of the agencies represented at the trainings were the Western UP Health Department, UP Kids, CLK Schools, Dial Help, Continuum of Care, Copper Country United Way, Probate Court, Legal Services of Northern Michigan, Child and Family Services, WUPPDR, Copper Country Mental Health, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Aspirus, and BHK.

The community board training established seven work groups, Machiela said, and included: “Risk & Protective Factors: Looking at Negative and Positive Influences in our Community;” “Resources: Analyzing Resources and Programs in our Area;” “Outreach: Spreading the Word about CTC;” “Funding: Finding Funds to Support CTC;” “Youth Involvement: Getting the Youth Involved in CTC;” “Community Board Maintenance: Keeping the Board on Track;” and “Suicide Prevention: Reducing Risk of Suicide for Youth.”

“We have people in each of the work groups and now they’re setting up their initial meetings. They will still generally meet about once a month. Sometimes it’ll be less, depending on what’s going on. For instance, the Resources and Funding groups might meet a little bit less until we get the results of the CTC survey, and then they might start meeting more frequently, so it might be bi-monthly for a while, and then roll into monthly (meetings),” Machiela said.

The next step in the organization of the program will be to all the work groups together.

“They’re all going to be meeting on a regular basis and we’ll be constantly recruiting more members,” Machiela said.

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