Her Story
About Peggy
I am the Director for Prevention Programming and Services through the Appalachian Children Coalition, where my goal is to help prevention providers in the 32 counties that I serve with resources and support to provide critical services including substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, and gun safety programs. I work specifically in Appalachia, Ohio, which is a historically underserved community facing barriers related to transportation, socioeconomic challenges, food insecurity, and other social determinants of health. My scope involves providing prevention services and resiliency interventions to this underserved population. I work closely with partners to pilot new programs and meet with curriculum developers to provide information to the coalitions I support, building a one-stop shop for prevention in Appalachia, Ohio. I collaborate with our prevention specialist who started the Appalachian Youth-led Prevention Coalition, ensuring youth voices are heard because they are our future and see more than we think they do. We work to make sure Appalachian youth voices are represented at the state level as well. We provide education through conferences and online trainings at no cost to participants, offering continuing education credits while working within federal funding challenges. I operate 100% remotely but travel to in-person coalition meetings when necessary and attend prevention conferences including the Ohio Prevention Conference, CADCA conference, and National Prevention Conference. I am currently enrolled in a doctorate for public health through Claremont Graduate University.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Peggy
01What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges I'm facing involve serving a historically underserved community in Appalachia, Ohio, that has significant barriers including transportation issues, socioeconomic challenges, and food insecurity, really all of the social determinants of health. We're also dealing with challenges in federal funding and people's budgets not being as robust as they once were, so we're doing our best to keep everything at no cost for our participants to really just bolster up the services being offered. We're working to help with the workforce shortage and build knowledge around the science of prevention in the region. Appalachia has been historically underrepresented in Ohio, so we work very closely with statewide youth prevention efforts to make sure that Appalachian youth voices are heard at the state level as well.
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