Narrator:
As communities around the country are learning, the key to effective prevention is to use multiple strategies, in multiple settings, toward achieving one common goal. One important strategy is collaboration. New Haven, Connecticut has been addressing alcohol and other drug issues for the past several decades. Several years ago, New Haven Fighting Back was born to coordinate these ongoing efforts.

Sergio Rodriguez, member, City of New Haven, Fighting Back:
And in fact the feeling at the time was that this was a city that was resource-rich, that New Haven was a city that was resource-rich. But a lot of the services were fragmented. Some folks put their heads together and said, you know, maybe we need to try to do this a little bit differently. Maybe we do need to come together and begin to talk about what some of the real issues are around substance abuse for the city of New Haven.

Marzella Tyson, director, City of New Haven, Fighting Back:
New Haven Fighting Back is the city’s initiative to reduce alcohol and drug abuse. It is the city’s initiative, and it’s also the community’s initiative. It’s their response to the problem of alcohol and drug problems in our city. It’s run and driven by a group of citizens, which is composed of individuals who are in our community—the police department, the hospitals, the board of education, significant members—that have had an interest in the problem.

What we wanted was the community to know that it wasn’t just an isolated issue, that it was an issue that affected the whole community, and unless we included those different players in this, in the Fighting Back group, we were not going to be effective at all.

Narrator:
To ensure the successful launch of this important initiative, the Fighting Back staff engaged in an aggressive campaign of public education.

Marzella Tyson:
Well, people had to be educated about the problem, and many people have many different misinterpretations/misperceptions about the issues, so people had to be educated about it, and people had to see how it affected them. We had to have major orientations with people; we had to have a lot of informative sessions with people, one on one—What is your interest, as you know that this problem affects your institution? Do you know the extent of the problem?—and once we got to that period, people said “Okay, well, I’m interested,” and then they had to see how they were going to benefit and how they were going to make a difference.

Narrator:
As community awareness grew, Fighting Back shifted its focus from educating the public to building a critical mass for change by recruiting key community members to the coalition.

Narrator:
Staff were able to engage people by showing them how they would benefit, and helped them take ownership of the problem.

Marzella Tyson:
So, once they realized that, more people started to come to the table. It had to be something that was accommodating to them, in terms of the times and the days, because they were in positions that, they had very busy lives. So it was very challenging, trying to get them all at the same time in the same place. Keeping them there is another story. People want to feel that they have issues at the table that they’re going to address. They like live-wire kinds of things that they can deal with. They like to see that they’re making a change, so constant reports of accomplishments, constant reports of where we are and where we’re going.

Narrator:
As membership grew and stabilized, the coalition focused on developing an action plan to guide program design and implementation.

Marzella Tyson:
If you have a good action plan in front of you, you have the right people doing the right things in terms of the tasks that they’re assigned to do, a good staff, a good staff support, people tend to have a successful outcome.

Sergio Rodriguez:
Through this process of collaboration, it provides us with the opportunity to come up with much more creative ideas, less issues around burnout, because more people are tackling the problem together.

Germano A. Kimbro, male advocate, Responsible Fatherhood Initiative:
So, to come out here in public housing and to say that we want to work with fathers, it was a challenge, because a lot of the other services weren’t in place, traditional services in place for women and children, and that’s just on a local level as well as a state level. So what we’re able to do through collaborating was begin to lobby and contact key legislators and have legislation passed on the statewide level that recognized the need for support for low income, non-custodial fathers. So we just had a bill that was passed in the state that established the Fatherhood Council. To look at how to begin to rewire the system to get the Department of Social Services, Department of Labor, Corrections, community-based organizations, those clergy and folks that we need to educate around the Needs Initiative Fathers. And I guess the primary goal is to provide opportunities to encourage and support those efforts, in fathers’ quest to be financially and emotionally responsible for their children.

Narrator:
So, with membership in place and a set of innovative programs underway, New Haven Fighting Back now faced the single greatest challenge that all coalitions must deal with—how to maintain and sustain this important community initiative.

Sergio Rodriguez:
Now, I believe there are three skills necessary to maintain a coalition. One would be education around the political system. Who are the people in your community that are the political people that need to be involved, that can really move your particular group’s agenda, if necessary? So that’s a very critical piece.

Marzella Tyson:
Having them at the table and having them informed when the sessions would come around would be a good opportunity for them to interject and be knowledgeable about the issues whenever we had to present any type of policy during that session.

Sergio Rodriguez:
I think the second thing is what are the resources that are truly available to you? Who at the table, what resources do they bring? What can you harness from them? Do you have somebody who can give you legal advice? Do you have somebody who can give you, who is an administrator, who can help to think about the group administratively?

And I guess the third thing, in terms of skills, how would you promote yourself, once you’ve gotten these two areas taken care of? So that other people can buy into it as you’re doing.

Public Service Announcement:
Aren’t you tired of seeing your friends and loved ones devastated by abuse of alcohol and other drugs? The New Haven Fighting Back Coalition is on the move to reduce substance abuse—the killer of hopes and dreams. We are collaborating with AIDS organizations to reduce drug-related HIV infection. Working with the faith community on the role of spirituality in addiction recovery. And helping families to create safe neighborhoods. Join with Fighting Back to help people get sober and get well. Call us for an information packet.

Marzella Tyson:
In New Haven, we see this alcohol and drug problem as—it’s not isolated, it’s something that you’re going to have to have a collaboration to address. And if you don’t, it’s just something that you’ll never have a positive outcome, if you don’t have all the players around the table and address it as a community problem. That it’s not just one specific neighborhood, but then, it affects all neighborhoods. And even those people who don’t live within the city, it can affect those people that are close to our city, it comes in and out of our city, that will do business in our city, so the employers, the employees, everyone is affected by it.