At the Newtown Prevention Council meeting on Thursday, March 19, members reviewed a workshop conducted in January and worked on ways to continue its efforts to foster a resilient community.

Prevention Council Vice Chair Donna Culbert said the January event involved 75 people gathering to work on the effort, “and there was a lot of really thoughtful discussion and a lot of concrete suggestions and ideas that were shared.”

The January event included workshops overseen by Ken Druck. Ms Culbert said, “He walked us through looking at what is working in the community, what needs work, what are things that are working that we can strengthen or expand, and also suggestions on moving forward.”

Ms Culbert said communication and collaboration were emphasized during the workshop, along with other topics.

Before the council members broke into groups to discuss resiliency last Thursday, Co-Chairs Judy Blanchard and Chief of Police Michael Kehoe also spoke.

“When we are looking to develop resiliency in Newtown,” Ms Blanchard said, “it is a very fluid and ongoing changing process. We’re not going to get the answer here, but we are going to work on evaluating what we have, how we can make it better, and how we can create that net for everyone in our community.”

Ms Blanchard said previous council work has been based on risk and protective factors, and there are similarities between that work and building resiliency. The council will focus on protective factors that help reduce the risk of negative consequences. Protective factors, according to Ms Blanchard, include faith and spirituality, realistic expectations, behavioral control, altruism, a positive outlook, a sense of humor, and an ability to set goals.

“As these meetings go forward we are going to be analyzing our community and saying, what do we have in our community,” said Ms Blanchard, “let’s look at our goals and our limits…”

Chief Kehoe told the gathered council members they would be working on communication within the community before the members broke into groups to focus on discussing the best communication for different sectors of the community — family, individual, school and work, and the community in general.

“The question I would ask all of you is how do we improve or support a resilient community through communication?” Chief Kehoe said.

The groups worked for roughly 20 minutes before the council returned to share results.

With the groups each representing different sections of the community, members reported a range of communication options they felt would work best, including flyers, using social media, sending out announcements in the mail, talking to people individually, and working with local television and media outlets.

After discussing the different forms of communication that could be used, council members were tasked with testing out a form of communication before the council’s next meeting, scheduled for May 21, to share results with the full council.