Four-person prevention team at Valley Mental Health combines years of experience, unique backgrounds to stave off substance abuse problems

It is all about the next time. The next time a drunk driver doesn’t get behind the wheel of a car, or a teenager doesn’t light up a cigarette, or the next time somebody decides to follow the prescription on the bottle instead of accidentally overdosing on a prescription drug.

When the next time happens, or doesn’t happen, the prevention team at Valley Mental Health may be the ones to thank.

“The results of prevention are not always obvious,” said Julie Spindler, prevention coordinator for Valley Mental Health. “Unlike treatment where success stories always have a face, individuals whose lives or livelihoods have been saved by prevention strategies and programs may never be known.”

Valley Mental Health is a nonprofit organization that contracts with Tooele County to provide substance abuse and mental health services.

Working with Spindler at Valley Mental Health are three prevention specialists: Barry Pitt, Lorretta Normand and Bobby Main.

All four are committed to prevention services as way of building a better community through helping individuals.

Spindler grew up in Price and came to work as a prevention specialist in Tooele County in 1994 after graduating from Utah Sate University with a degree in health education. Spindler has been the prevention coordinator for Valley Mental Health for 10 years.

Spindler works with community outreach programs including Together for Youth, Tooele County Summit, and the underage drinking prevention program. She also promotes interagency coordination of prevention programs and services within the county.

Prevention is a driving force for Spindler.

“I came here because I thought I had something to offer the community,” Spindler said. “To make a difference in the life of just one kid has an impact on the whole community.”

Many Tooele County citizens are familiar with Barry Pitt because of his work for years as softball coach at Tooele High School.

Pitt, who was born and raised in Tooele, came to Valley Mental Health after retiring from a 23-year career with the Tooele Police Department, where he worked in the DARE program for 11 years.

“DARE was the most rewarding part of my law enforcement career,” Pitt said.

Now he teaches life skills classes for Valley Mental Health for seventh- through 12th-grade students identified as being at risk.

Lorretta Normand, also a Tooele native, worked at the Army Depot for 14 years as a freight rate specialist. She lost her job during downsizing and ended up working for a job service in Salt Lake.

“I felt disconnected from my community going into Salt Lake every day,” Normand said. “I would check at work for jobs in Tooele every day, and one day I saw a job at Valley Mental Health, applied and I have been here since.”

Normand has been with Valley Mental Health for 13 years — nine as an intake specialist processing paperwork for new clients, and four years as a prevention specialist.

Normand, along with the other prevention specialists, works in elementary schools teaching the prevention dimensions program, which is a five-week, half-hour-a-day program that teaches positive self image and healthy choices, including refusal skills for drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

“I love my community,” Normand said. “And this job gives me an opportunity to make my community a better place and help kids.”

Bobby Main was hired 10 months ago and is the newest member of the team. His position is primarily funded by a state grant for prescription drug abuse/misuse education.

Main originally went into the military after graduating from Tooele High School. He volunteered for a two-year assignment at Dugway Proving Ground before being sent overseas to Europe.

After leaving the military, with experience as a military police officer, Main came back to Tooele and worked for the Tooele Police Department. Main retired after 23 years in law enforcement and went to work as an investigator for the county attorney. The grant that funded that position ran out and Main worked maintenance for a short while for the county before coming to work for Valley Mental health.

Along with the prescription drug education program, Main also teaches prevention dimensions, and takes turns with the other prevention specialists teaching first offender DUI classes, teen drug and alcohol classes, as well as Internet safety.

“As a police officer most of what I did was reactive,” Main said. “I like what I do now because I can prevent a lot of the bad situations I saw as a law enforcement officer from ever happening.”

Spindler said there are statistics that implicate that the four-person prevention team in Tooele County is having a positive impact.

The Students Health and Risk Prevention (SHARP) survey conducted every two years in schools shows that alcohol, drug and tobacco use are either holding steady or trending downward.

“That’s quite an accomplishment when you consider the rapid growth in our school system in the last few years,” Spindler said.

Ken Luke, assistant superintendent for Tooele County School District, said, “Valley Mental Health has done marvelous things for our schools and community. They have been a real blessing. Their programs aimed at violence, bullying, drug abuse, and child abuse education have been very helpful to us.”

The prevention team is now facing a new obstacle, and it is not a new drug or a new negative trend. It is the economy.

The Utah Department of Human Services, like all departments of state government, have been asked by the governor to prepare a budget for 2009 reflecting a 7 percent cut in spending and legislative leaders are asking for a 15 percent cut in spending.

According to officials at the Department of Human Services, their budget cut amounts to $17 million and of that amount $12 million is proposed to come out of the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.

To accomplish that, the state’s entire budget allotment of $2 million for prevention programs will be cut, according to Spindler.

“To us here in Tooele County, that will mean the loss of all of our direct state funding, which is 38 percent of our total budget for prevention,” Spindler said.

If Valley Mental Health loses state funding for prevention programs, Spindler said the Prevention Dimensions program in schools would be cut back, the Parent’s Empowered Campaign against underage drinking would be eliminated, the junior and high school life skills program would have to be cut, and other programs such as the Governing Youth Council and third grade art contest would also be lost.

While Spindler understands that cutbacks are necessary, she is concerned about the effects a loss of all state funding for prevention could have.

“Not only are these programs important in terms of the social impact on the community,” Spindler said, “but there are financial considerations as well.”

Spindler pointed out a study by the Department of Human Services that claims that every dollar spent on prevention yields a $15 savings in health care costs, law enforcement, increased productivity, and other state-funded social and welfare services.

“All we want is one less mile of new highways,” Main said, citing a study from UDOT that it costs about $2 million to build one mile of highway, which is the same amount the state spends on prevention education in one year.

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com