Group talks about substance abuse prevention

MARQUETTE — A survey and a special presentation were items on the agenda of Tuesday’s Marquette County Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention Coalition meeting.

The group, commonly known as MC2, aims to insert itself into various community sectors to get people talking about substance abuse prevention. They often hear from community presenters — in Tuesday’s case, Nheena Weyer Ittner of the U.P. Children’s Museum — to find out what other groups in the area are doing.

“We make a lot of connections here. We have a lot of groups that will say, ‘oh, I’ve met this person at MC2, and then I talked with them, and then we started doing programming.’ So our group really likes to hear from diverse groups in our community that are — especially ones that are working with youth and families,” said Sarah Derwin, Health Educator for the Marquette County Health Department.

MC2 also recently did an analysis of their group by surveying members, some of whom have been a part of MC2 for less than five years. The results of that survey were presented at the meeting.

“We just want to touch base with them and say ‘give us your real candid input of what you think is going well, what we can do better, and what we can build on,'” Derwin added. “So it just helps us going forward to get a good direction.”

Click here to visit the MC2 Facebook page.