Introducing the New Program Manager for Garfield County PREP

I am delighted to be given the opportunity to continue the fantastic work started by Gretchen and look forward to meeting current partners and developing new relationships. Here's a little introduction for you to begin to get to know me. Please feel free to contact me at garfieldcountyprep@gmail.com.

D –  Dedicated to continuing the work of PREP in the Roaring Fork Valley by maintaining current and creating new relationships with the local schools, community members and organizations, students, parents and any caring adult interested in making an impact on the reduction of teen pregnancies and STD’s in the valley. After a 5 year and 3 month hiatus from non-profit, social-type work to become experienced in online marketing, it is a wonderful feeling to be back in a position where I have the opportunity to make a positive impact on youth while making connections with caring adults in the community.

I – Invested in the social, emotional, mental, and physical well-being of youth, their partners and their families. While going to college to earn my bachelor’s degree in psychology, I focused many of my classes on human and child development. After returning to college to become a certified elementary teacher in the state of Iowa, I worked as a Parent Educator in a Birth – 3 Parents As Teachers program, as a Site Coordinator for an after school program that offered enrichment and academics to youth in grades 4 -6 and as an alcohol Prevention Specialist before accepting a teaching assignment in a small, consolidated, rural school district in Southeast Iowa where prevention of at-risk behaviors and an awakened awareness of bullying was always at the forefront. A position with Garfield County’s Department of Human Services brought me to the western slope of Colorado where I worked as a Child Welfare Case Manager.

A – Accepting of those with different backgrounds, cultures, ideologies, opinions, experiences, and personal identities with the idea of welcoming that diversity in order to effectively create a comprehensive sexuality education initiative that is sustainable and accepted by the majority of the area’s citizens. Understanding that we all have a “back-story” is crucial in relationship building and understanding those who are different than ourselves. I hope to model acceptance, understanding and inclusion even when values and beliefs differ.

N – Nutty! Besides loving nuts of all kinds, I am also crazy passionate about kids; their well-being, their thoughts and ideas, their struggles and helping them to become lifelong learners with an insatiable desire to discern between fact and fiction in order to make a clear and bright path for their future. Being nutty has also helped me to think creatively and out-of-the-box when problem solving; because being told something can’t be done drives me nuts!

A – Actively seeking interested adults to be a safe place for our youth to turn for factual information regarding sex, relationships and prevention. The after school program I helped to create was called Adults Connecting with Children and Teens or ACCT. While the outward goal was to provide opportunities that were otherwise unobtainable in a small, rural community, the underlying goal was to provide a safe, supervised place for the area’s youth to connect with a meaningful and trusted adult in the hopes of reducing the chance they would succumb to at-risk behaviors no matter what life threw their way.