Behind every coalition are good members who contribute to amazing work behind the scenes.
Behind Tuscarawas County Community is a Coalition of people that contribute to Empower Tusc. Recently announced the Tuscarawas County Anti-Drug Coalition now Empower Tusc will serve Tuscarawas County with education and resources. Within this coalition are members like Chris Lane that give to their community to help make it better for all.
Chris Lane found time in his busy life schedule to give a glimpse of himself to let us get to know him a little bit to understand his why. He has served the community for five years on the coalition. Chris has served on the coalition in different capacities first as a volunteer helping where he could and over time became the Business Sector Representative on the the coalition.
Called to Serve
When asked what his calling to serve was. He stated that he was called to serve on the ADC, now Empower Tusc for multiple reasons.
First as the parent of children in high school, middle school, and elementary. He knows intimately the challenges and pressures they are under and wants to be an active part of providing resources and influencing outcomes for them. Secondly, as a business owner, he wanted to influence both his current force as well as impact the future workforce not only for himself but all employers. As our youth-to-youth enjoy reminding us, “we will be in charge someday, so we need to develop the skills and tools now”. Lastly, as combat veteran I know how important and impactful this work is to the veteran community.
Your most valuable reason in your Role
There are many things about Empower Tusc that Chris enjoys, his favorite would be the people. He is a huge proponent to advocacy at he legislative arena and he finds himself drawn to that. Youth-to-youth is also a program he is drawn to, working on this coalition really does a great job of engaging the youth while not making them feel subordinate to the adult leadership.
They drive the program and know how to best engage their peers to drive awareness, education, and resources that result in better decisions and stronger relationships that are key to prevention.
Top reason of enjoyment goes back to the people The leaders or the different sectors, the volunteers, the professional counseling coordinators, the state, and other government leaders are all engaged in know just how important this topic is. The passion for our youth is invigorating. Chris is proud to serve along with such great community members.
Work of the Coalition
The work of the Empower Tusc Coalition is so important to Chris. He states this could be a doctoral dissertation in and of itself, but the thesis is pretty simple: the easiest way to influence outcomes is to impact the individual inputs prior to or as early as possible before they are put under stress. Our youth specifically need to feel as though they are heard, are important, and significant, are cared for, and are valued. They are under different stresses than many of us recall from our youth, and unfortunately through socialization of poor coping mechanisms are being driven to unhealthy behaviors much earlier. Another key reason for the coalition is the lack of educational resources to our community as a whole to the issues and problems that surround substance abuse and addiction. The points of entry into the cycle of addiction are no more readily available, and he just doesn’t know that is common knowledge. One the most significant developments during his time with the coalition has been the inclusion of mental health into the mission. More and more we have come to understand and realize the link between mental health and substance abuse/addiction and our efforts must evolve to include this as well. More and more our youth, and veteran community, find themselves in a place where they do not feel valued, feel important, or feel as thought they are worth the effort to overcome their struggles leading to an explosion in suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Anything we do to reduce these and provide education, resources, awareness and tools is going to have exponential impacts further down the prevention pipeline.
After listening to Chris explain his passion for Empower Tusc we hope that you know the resource materials are available for assistance on levels of all kinds throughout Tuscarawas County. If hearing Chris’ passion and cause maybe you feel lead to get involved with Empower Tusc to help make a difference in your community. We want to thank Chris Lane for his time in allowing us to cover him in his important role on the Coalition.
This awareness campaign is brought to you by Empower Tusc.
