Brenda Tyrrell, Prevention Specialist, CFR and Diane Hinderaker, Executive Director, Boone/Greene County Probation, September 14, 2026

On our program today, we are visiting with Brenda Terrell, Brenda's with Community Family Resources, once again a prevention specialist. Yep. Thanks for coming back. Thank you. Otherwise, I would be here talking to Diane. Well, I don't think that's a bad thing. No, okay. She's a good conversant. So. Joining us, Diane Hinderacher. Hello. Good to have you back. Thank you. It's been a while since we've had a chance to visit. There are many things we could be visiting about. This is true. But we're going to talk about SAFE today. Yes. And I keep telling Brenda, I remember back when we had a director for SAFE back 30 years ago. Could have been. It was in the 90s or early 2000s anyway. It was one of those where we did a lot of things or the SAFE coalition was very active, did a lot of things. But we had a lot of dollars getting pushed into it from different grant programs and things like that at the federal level. Right. Right. And then kind of lost a lot of funding for it. So it was, how do we maintain this at our local level? Now you're working on trying to bring it back? Yeah. Trying to keep it going. Well, Brenda keeps bringing it up. That's good stuff. So that's just one of many things that we want to talk about. But let's start with that, the SAFE coalition. Sure. And first of all, I mean, I know you're interested in it. Yeah. Yeah. For probably five, six months now, I heard about it through the grapevine. So I'm actually really excited about some of the projects that we've taken on. And we have some neat stuff kind of coming up in the future too. So yeah. So Dan, what are we doing to kind of rebuild it and let the public know that it is, there's still this effort here. Right. Right. Coalitions are going on all over in every county in Iowa. Boone has a really rich history that a lot of people don't know about. There's been multiple coalitions here. I've worked in this county for probably 18 years, 10 of them at probation. And I started my first day when I worked at YSS in prevention, Substance Abuse Prevention. I went to the coalition meeting. So I was a newbie then, and that was probably 15 years ago. And we had, as you said, we had funding, we had a coordinator, there were lots of dollars at the state level that were spent. And those grants kind of dried up and went away and the coalition has kind of ebbed and flowed. And we used to have law enforcement, community members, youth, spiritual leaders in the community, business people, tons. And it's kind of distilled down. We're really a small but mighty group. And we're trying to keep substance abuse free environments. That's what SAFE kind of stands for. We're trying to keep events throughout kind of, it's pretty much the school year, but there might be a few summer initiatives. But trying to keep our message of substance-free sober living, healthy living, all of those messages, we're trying to keep that out there and keep that going to especially youth and young adults. So we have kind of, in our group, we've kind of put together a list of activities that we're going to support. And our most recent one, just to give you kind of an example, is the chamber does a new teacher breakfast. And so SAFE was thinking, how can we impart some information to that group of new people to the community or new people that are starting out teaching? So we put together a packet of informational pieces, resources, some data points, just some good information for them about not only the county, but about where substance abuse free environments, where that kind of is right now. So we donated to the school fund for supplies and classrooms, which I thought was a good use of our dollars to really put that money in where it can do the best good for school kids. So that's just kind of one initiative. We have a multitude of things over the course of a year. And just trying to keep this message out there, keep doing community coalition work. We're inviting anyone in the community that's interested or has maybe a background or experience in substance abuse or counseling work or prevention, or someone who's just interested or just wants to do good things in the community. I remember the original, when it was originally started, you had some community members, like you said, some law enforcement. Just a wide variety of people that had an interest in make. And again, the big pushback then, I go back a long time ago, was prevention. It was basically educating young people and trying to keep that substance abuse free environment. As prevention specialist, I'm guessing it's pretty high on your list. I was just going to chime in and say, with all the things, I mean, I've been hearing cratum all over the news lately, and I don't know if they're more dangerous, but there are a lot more of them, things out there that people are unaware of. And being a part of a coalition can help spread out that news a little bit. It's different. It is. What we were doing, well, it's not that different. There's always something. It's just exactly what is it, and there's always new challenges on the prevention side. Especially when you have young people who are well aware of a lot, probably a lot more than their parents or even grandparents think they are. I know that we had, again, if people are interested, we've got to go right to this part first about if they are interested in finding out more or making contact, what's the best way to go about that? We have a Facebook page, correct? And or you can contact either Diane or myself, and we can hook you up. Yes. We meet on Monday, the third Monday, yes, the third Monday of the month. We meet over by the hospital. There's a brick building behind there that used to be a doctor's office. That's where my office is. We meet in the conference room there on that third Monday of every month. We don't meet in the summer usually, and then December, sometimes we'll take December off too. It's just too busy. So about 4.15, we get together and talk through what we need to and kind of plan for our upcoming events. I'm open to having anyone call at any time if they're interested or just want to know how much time it would be or what it's about, please give me a call. I would be very happy to have a conversation about the coalition and what we're doing. My number, can I share that, is 515-432-7995. And again, Diane Hinderacher, I'm happy to talk about anything involving Project Safe. We're happy to talk about it. And I must say, again, as I have said many times, Brenda has been a fantastic advocate to have on the group. With her connections through the work that she does in the county, it's been a great asset to our group, so it's awesome. We have different groups that do different things or have been doing different things, but like YSS and their trailer. Right. Absolutely. That was something they did spend a lot of time on and did get a lot of support for. We did used to do that. Yes. The interesting thing, you're exactly right, is that in-plane site, we kind of pioneered long ago. We did it in a different way and we had discussions about trying to get a trailer together, but who would have it? How would we do it? Jeanette just kind of took that idea and really distilled it and ran with it and has been so successful and did a great job. But we used to put up a classroom or a kid's room at conferences in different schools. And we'd have parents come through and we'd talk through paraphernalia that they would never even know exists. So it's really great. It's in a portable fashion and it's getting out to people. Gosh, things have changed so much in the world of substances and it's changing at a time. And they're working as hard to get their substances and their addiction pieces out there to kids and families and adults. They're working as hard as we are against it. So that will never go away. But having some information and some education is a really good piece for families and parents for sure. Think of maybe some parents who, when they would go to those conferences and they would come out and all of a sudden there would be the in-plane site room that would be set up there and they, what is this? So both of me, you know, and again, kind of shocking. And then all of a sudden, well, it's not around anymore, but maybe their kids aren't involved and they're not going to parent-teacher conferences. This is a way if they want to help support something like that, get involved again. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Grandkids or whatever. Or just the community. You know, every, it's influencing every member of the community. So. Brenda? Yes. Because you do a lot of, because this is what you're doing here is with CFR, you do have some things that are coming up here, basically, well, substance misuse series, as it's called this time. Yes. Yeah. We're going the second time around. We are starting a new series of three. We are doing understanding addiction in October and then a couple more to follow. So once a month, we're going to be at the Erickson Public Library doing a presentation about a particular topic. They range around an hour to an hour and a half. It just depends on, you know, what the topic is and how much, you know, how much, how many questions get asked or how many people are there, what they want to learn. Right. Exactly. So we're going to be back to the Narcan training and that's not on the calendar. We're hoping it'll be on the calendar soon. But when we do the Narcan training, then we actually do the training on how to do the Narcan. So, yeah, that takes a little bit longer time too. These are all going to be the first Tuesday of the month again. These are the at the Erickson Public Library. Yep. So it'll be the first Tuesday, the 6th of October, 2nd of November, and again, first of December. In the evening, 6 o'clock in the evening. Yeah. The time, just to be clear, the times are varying. This time they're not at the same time. Yep. Drug trends, that's going to be 4.30. Right. You get quite a crowd for that. Right. And that's why we're kind of playing with the hours a little bit. There are some, in some of that you did do, there were some that really got involved. You had a lot of people that became quite involved. Yeah. The understanding addiction one was really one that people grasped and took a hold of. So, you know, there's a conversation that took place that we need to offer that a little bit more. So, yeah. The understanding addiction for people that are willing to try to deal with it. That's two different, you guys have done prevention. You know what? Yeah. It is multi-layered for sure. Yeah. A lot of pieces. So, we've got all of that. You do have some youth programs. Yeah. We've got new youth programs. We started talking a little bit about this before, but you were still putting them all together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a couple of adult programs too. Actually, I think we only have one. Okay. Anyway, so we're working on tobacco and we're going to be doing the You and Me Together Vape Free, which is through Stanford University. We've got Stack Deck for problem gambling. We've got Life Skills for just everything from mental health to how to have a conversation, how to invite somebody to an event, you know, so on and so forth. And then we also have what we call for Prime 420, which is like an operating while intoxicated or just operating or just, you know, partaking in cannabis for the youth. So we have a lot of different programs this year. These are all youth, generally, you're focusing youth related? Yes. Yes. We do also have the WISE training, which stands for Wellness Initiative for Senior Education. It is for 55 plus. We do have a training coming up in Madrid actually starting later this month. It is September 24th. This is start date. And it goes, it's two hours times six sessions. So it's kind of, it's not six consecutive sessions at the Madrid Library. So get on the Madrid Library website and see when it starts. Like everything else we do is 100% free. And so, yeah. And for those that wonder, obviously a lot of what you do can end up coming back to probation. It can. Yeah, it can. So we get a lot of. Yeah. And for that reason, some of those offenders, I'll give you a probation, but. Right. Yeah. Drug charges are one of our top three that we deal with a probation. OWIS would be our top most prevalent charge. So when we get people, you know, that have gotten in trouble with the law, we, I'm kind of doing the part and working with my officers to really throw some good information and support at people while we have them. If you're not sober, nothing else works. So really supporting people sobriety and moving them toward a drug-free living and alcohol-free life is a big goal for probation. People that are able to kind of make a change with that, kind of a lifelong lasting change. We don't see them back in offending. So we're working really hard to support that for people at probation. And when you talk about the OWI part, you guys do the education, task with the education part. Yep. Yep. We do a monthly OWI training. It is a 12-hour program. There is a fee to it. It's, I believe it's $185. But yeah, we do it monthly. The only month this year we're not doing it is November, because November is very busy. So. I know. Let's not build the numbers though. Yeah. That's the big. Let's build those numbers up too. Let's, I want to get back to SAFE because it's one of those things, I was around when it first started. I hate, well, I hate to say it, but no, I don't. It was one of those things that, it was very exciting when it started. I mean, we had, we had Whirly from the governor's office, he was our drug czar for Iowa, came and it was a big event. We had a lot of people that were there. A lot of excitement. And then again, as you said, over time, some of those grants dried up and things changed and we kind of lost some of that motivation. Right. Right. And they even, you know, long ago Kelly Wooden is another name from the community that many people may know. She was the supervisor for that when I started 15 years ago on the coalition and she was just a fantastic advocate and had the project safe in so many places doing good work. They even sent people to coalition, national coalition conventions and we had some law enforcement people that were working with us for compliance checks and just a lot of other activities that were really, they were really bearing out some, some good advocacy for the community. And as, you know, time has gone on, priorities have changed and so we are working, we have received some, some good grants in the last couple of years from the CPPC group. And so we've utilized some of those to purchase some new equipment and purchase some giveaways at our tabling events and so, you know, it's still a vital coalition. We're still doing the work that we can. But it never goes away, we're never, we're never out of work, so. Would you, and for people that may be listening and trying to figure out, right, we do have human, human resources get togethers, things like, you guys do that, or in this case you have your safe meetings and stuff, but you get the different entities that are involved one way or another, but the problem is, or I think probably one of the big efforts might be collaborating to get bigger bang for what we've got and have a bigger impact. And there's lots of different coalitions that have different focuses, but an overarching, I think, piece for any community coalition is just people from the county and from the area working to make things better. There's a coalition at the library that's doing wonderful work. They have a mental health focus. There's coalitions, the Human Service Council, which we'll go to that meeting today, is just kind of a piece to bring social service and helping agencies together, just to network, to talk about solving problems. So everyone has kind of a different angle, but the overarching piece in Boone County is so lucky to have these people that are working to make the community better. They're not being paid, it's community coalition work, it's volunteerism, which is a wonderful thing to have vital and lively in your county and in your communities. Every time I look at that, I keep saying they're getting together to make sure that nobody's falling between the cracks. Right, exactly. So that everybody's, we've got coverage there one way or another for folks of a different kind. Yeah. Now, the big thing is our substance abuse free environment. Really working to get more involved with that, and again, a great way to do that would be just to make contact. Right, absolutely. You can do it through the office or call CFR. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Email. Email, all the things. All the ways. Yes. Once again, did one, oh, I know there was another one. You have same day access hours over in Ames? Yeah. Well, we've had them for a while, but I know people sometimes forget that we have them or somebody asks me and I can never remember the hours. So same day access over in Ames happens on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesday is the longer day. It's two to six Thursday is 11 to three, and Friday is nine to one. And that means that you just come in and you can be seen that same day. You might have a little bit of a wait because it gets kind of busy, but you can still, somebody can still be seen during that time period. This is, and people are going, well, why do I want to go to Ames? Well, because we do have access here, but probably not same day. A lot of it's scheduling and we don't have the size of office. Right. Exactly. Yeah. We don't have same day access at the Boone office. I'm not sure if that's something that is coming down the line. So I don't want to say it is, but yeah. And by the way, back to the human, you're back to the human services, right? Yeah. And it's over in the, well, I call it the public health, YSS kind of. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's the old, yeah, the old clinic over there. Yeah. Yeah. Still getting used a lot. Yeah, it is. It is. Which is a good thing. So yeah. Once again, safe meetings come up, what would you say, third Monday? Third Monday of the month at 415 and we meet at 105 South Marshall Street in that brick building behind the hospital. Yeah. If they're interested, they can call beforehand, maybe find out more. For sure. Yep. If they didn't want to come by themselves, make contact and start a discussion and find out more and maybe they'll get two or three people to come. Yeah. Which would be wonderful. Yeah. And we keep looking to build on that. So on the safe side of things, what are we, because one of the things and I keep bringing it up was always Red Ribbon Week was a big one that SAFE was always heavily involved with. Yep. So if you look at that, do you have some things coming up? Yes. Red Ribbon Week is coming up end of October and we will be contacting and I've already made a few emails and connected with some of the schools just to support Red Ribbon Week which is highlighting a very specific event and really highlighting that week for substance free environments for kids. We worked on the teacher piece this fall. We have some other pieces coming up. We'll be at the Trunk or Treat for Boone as well. And then we'll get into the kind of Christmas time and we've always done something with holiday hosting. Yes. We've worked with a chamber on there and it's something as simple as just putting some stickers on the cocoa cups that everyone carries around at Christmas time for that festival. And just a little reminder of how to be drug free, how to keep a really healthy life. Some encouragement for people to make those parts of their life, give a little more time and energy to that. And as we go into New Year's Eve, hey, maybe there's a new resolution you want to make about, hey, let's have a drug free and alcohol free six months or try it out. Who knows. See what happens. And I know, Brenda, you still have regular trainings and things. You spend a lot of time just going out training a lot of people about different things. Besides the new ones coming up again on the first Tuesdays of each month, October, November and December at the library. And then the youth programs too. Yeah. Now, are these going to individual schools or how do you work with them? Yeah. I mean, we're reaching out to schools, other kinds of organizations that work with youth like Iowa State Extension, you know, those 4-Hers and things like that. There are probably our main focuses in the schools because it's a larger group to reach, but that we're not limiting ourselves to that. So we are still, since these are brand new programs, we ourselves, my colleague and I, she's still learning. We're still, I'm in the middle of a training right now. So we have one more training left and then we'll have everything under our belt and then we'll be more better to answer questions and things like that. So much more. Yeah. Well, I do appreciate you guys coming in and talking about it. Again, people, if you want to find out about SAFE or becoming a part of it, or at least finding out if this is something you would like to help support, contact either Diane Hinderacher and or Brenda Terrell. And ones at CFR, the others at Boone County Probation, Boone Green County Probation. And once again, easy to get a hold of and if you have any questions, call. I'll tell you which way to go or who to get a hold of. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having us.