Organization members say community conversation is key to decreasing harmful activity
On Thursday, Feb. 20, representatives from the New Hampshire Listens organization and other representatives from the New Futures New Hampshire worked collaboratively to converse on problems in the community at the Keene Public Library.
The concept of people meeting and discussing is one major aspect of what New Hampshire Listens does. According to Michele Holt-Shannon, the associate director of NH Listens, “Just being a part of a conversation can reduce stigmas about many different topics in a community.”
Futures is the other organization that has similar goals to that of NH Listens, “Our policy is to educate, collaborate and advocate,” according to Sarah Sadowski, who oversees New Futures advocacy training. Sadowski stated, “Tonight is really about what you see in your community and what impacts can be made by conversing.”
Partnering up with NH Listens is something that both organizations like to do in order to amplify the effects of the program.
Sadowski commented on the relationship between the two organizations, “We really admire the work [NH Listens] does. We were very excited when we started working with them.”
New Hampshire Listens has created facilitated initiatives such as the program at the Keene library since 2011, with the goal of, “Getting people to walk away with talking to their neighbors and attempting to understand each other better,” Holt-Shannon said.
“What we do here is design conversations like this to get people informed and talking so we can hear what people are concerned about,” Holt-Shannon added.
Eric Jedd / Equinox Staff:
Members of the New Hampshire Listens organization collaborate in the Keene Public Library Thursday, Feb. 20, on drug and alcohol problems in the Keene community.
Bruce Mallory, director of NH Listens and interim director at the University of New Hampshire, gave established general courtesy rules for conversing. “Speak for yourself and not for others. We want to hear from you as residents or citizens, so please be respectful of everyone,” he said.
The topic of discussion for this panel was drugs and alcohol problems in the community. Before the actual discussions between the different groups of participants, information about New Hampshire’s drug and alcohol problems was compiled and shared to help spark the conversations.
Mallory also revealed that even though the information was shared and discussed between the participants, it would be anonymous.
The facilitators would be taking notes on things people would like to change.
Mallory stated, “Another purpose of this conversation is that [the conversations] will be combined with others all over the state, and presented.”
According to a 2011 national survey on drug use and health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, N.H. is 3.1 percent worse than the national average when it comes to drug use, other than marijuana.
N.H. is also 8.2 percent worse than the national average when it comes to normal marijuana use. While people in N.H. are consuming 12.2 percent more alcohol in 30 days than the national average. N.H. is also 9.1 percent worse than that of the national average in binge drinking.
As for marijuana use, N.H. also beat out the national average of users of all ages; from 12 to 26 years old and up.
Alongside the national statistics about N.H., multiple different statistics were given that ranged from social and economic costs, impacts on families and communities, barriers to treatment of addiction; many different bits of information researched and compiled to educate people wanting to know more and say more.
Because of the concepts and the safe environment of the event established by both N.H. Listens and New Futures, the names and discussions of the participants in the panel will not be published. The conversations were structured with respect in mind, and even if someone disagreed with someone else, the philosophy of both organizations encourages and supports healthy disagreement while communicating.
Holt-Shannon commented on the effectiveness of conversation in the community and said, “When we work together with people from all walks of life and diversities, we can start to identify with each other and can make change happen.”
Eric Jedd can be contacted at ejedd@keene-equinox.com
