Within the next few months, Minnesota Star of the North Prevention Coalition (Star) will begin the fifth and final year of our grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). Star is part of a cohort of grants that were designed to bring local community partnerships into a regional or statewide coalition. Star, as you know, has been a statewide coalition/network that built on the five original community partnerships funded by CSAP in the early 90s. Today Star has 134 members, including 84 local community-based coalitions.
On July 17, 1998, the Star Coalition leadership and staff met to begin planning for the future in earnest. Rather than starting with, "how do we find the resources needed to continue on after CSAP funding ends?" we wanted to first take a step back and ask if Star should continue.
To address that question, we asked everyone to identify the prevention needs in Minnesota for the next two to three years. Small groups then identified up to five action recommendations stemming from those needs.
These action recommendations were then discussed by asking the question, "Should Star play a major role in implementing this recommendation?" We then voted on our top priorities.
In the next issue of Impact!, we will share these priorities with you. We ask you to help us think through these two questions:
You can call Jean Funk at 612-427-5310 or 800-247-1303, or send email to jfunk@miph.org.