Upstream
Moving Upstream means we dig down and address underlying causes that impact us all. Our goal is to build resilience, decrease risk factors, and build protective factors to have impacts on our individual and public health downstream. With a mission to support systems-level changes to promote public health, we focus on increasing knowledge, skills, and building a community that rejects stigma surrounding mental health and substance misuse. We believe our efforts are stronger because they’re collaborative with partners across the county, working from a place of strength and positivity (as opposed to fear and scare tactics), and utilize best practices to save lives and help individuals thrive.
Upstream hosts community trainings to increase mental health awareness (including Youth Mental Health First Aid, and suicide prevention trainings), and posts weekly Wellness Wednesday videos to our Facebook page as a reminder that we ALL have mental health (and it’s just as important as our physical health!). Even if you haven’t heard of Upstream, you’ve likely heard of one of the many community initiatives within our umbrella: Empower Johnson County and their Empowered Youth coalition; the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Johnson County and the ATLAS team; our recovery-supportive, harm reduction, and overdose prevention initiatives (such as the Naloxboxes); or have seen the beautiful Wall of Hope mural in Franklin (49 W Monroe). We support evidence-based programming in schools, utilize data to identify gaps in community resources, and seek to partner with others to ensure our county is a place where every neighbor can thrive, because every neighbor (and every life!) matters.
There is so much we can do with strong volunteers and partners – more than we can share in this profile! We invite you to visit our webpage to learn more, consider attending one of our upcoming trainings or events (we’ll be at The Historic Artcraft on April 27th, have a county-wide scavenger hunt in May, and have a plethora of community trainings coming up this spring and summer!), or reach out if you’d like to learn more! You can see what’s happening on our calendar (www.upstreamprevention.org/calendar), or reach out to info@upstreamprevention.org.