At the Fourth Annual Meeting, LCASC co-presidents, Representative Kathy Ryg and Chief Raymond Rose, spoke to community leaders from across Lake County about the recent successes of the Coalition. The Lake County Underage Drinking Prevention Task Force and the Youth Empowerment Summit–Be the Change! have had significant impact demonstrating the effectiveness of the Coalition in responding to community needs with community resources and engaging and empowering our kids. Representative Ryg also spoke of the support that the coalition has received from their business partners, the Northern Illinois Collaboration (NIC), who have supported LCASC’s efforts and are focusing on afterschool and youth development as a priority. Their financial support has enabled LCASC to fund a part-time coordinator to manage the programs and activities which support positive youth development on a county-wide basis. The partnership with NIC, which includes Abbott Laboratories, Allstate Insurance, Baxter Healthcare, and Hewitt Associates, has taken the coalition’s efforts to a new level.
Other successes which occurred since the last annual meeting include the merging of coalition efforts with Character Matters of Lake County (CMLC). CMLC, which is dedicated to encouraging schools, businesses and communities throughout Lake County to promote basic ethic values, is now part of the larger mission of the LCASC. Another success is that the Illinois Department of Human Services has funded the Illinois Strategic Prevention Framework Grant resulting in the STAND-UP program (Standing Up Against Underage Drinking Through Prevention). The focus is to assess underage drinking consumption and collect data, build Task Force capacity to maximize community-wide impact, and develop an initial, community-wide strategic plan to combat underage drinking, following the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Strategic Prevention Framework process. The LCASC was featured at the Statewide Afterschool Networks Annual Meeting in Tucson, Arizona.
Northern Illinois Collaboration business partners also hosted on-site presentations at Abbott, Allstate, Baxter and Hewitt featuring an expert panel on underage drinking prevention and the effects of substance use on youth. Power point presentations offered the Lake County data as collected as part of the Illinois Youth Survey demonstrating the need for awareness, prevention and early intervention efforts in our own communities.
Justice Mary Seminara Schostok, 2nd District Appellate Court, was this year’s keynote speaker. She has served as an Assistant State's Attorney in the Lake County State's Attorney Office. Justice Seminara Schostok's service on the bench began in May 1998 when she was appointed to serve as an Associate Judge in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court. During her 10-year tenure as a Circuit Judge, Justice Seminara Schostok presided over both criminal and civil matters, and supervised the Juvenile Division, the Misdemeanor and Traffic Divisions, and the Law Division. She spoke at the meeting about the importance of underage drinking prevention through education.
As a result of its innovative work and dynamic contributions, the LCASC is viewed as an effective after school program coalition model that is being replicated throughout Illinois. Many of the youth organizations supported by the Lake County After School Coalition shared program highlights and information at displays throughout the meeting room. Students who participated in the 2nd Annual Youth Empowerment Summit-Be the Change! recapped the successful event and talked about the ongoing issues affecting youth today.
At the conclusion of the meeting, new nominations to the board were announced and subsequently voted on.
The Board of Directors includes:
- Judy Armstrong – Village of Round Lake Beach
- Jennifer Tempest-Bova – Woodland Community Cons. School Dist. 50
- Shirley Christian – Avon Township Youth Advisory Board
- Carolina Duque- Mano a Mano Family Resource Center
- Jeremy Foster- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lake County
- Pat Garrity – Lake County Health Department/Community Health Center
- JoAnn Jakubowski – Southlake Educational Center/College of Lake County
- Adrienne Schwarzbach Johnson – Community Member
- Bruce Johnson – Nicasa
- Claudia Kasten – Lake County State’s Attorney Office
- Susie Kuruvilla – Gurnee Park District
- Theresa Loerch – Office of State Representative Kathy Ryg, District 59
- Peggy Miller – College of Lake County – Judicial Services
- Gary Pickens – Lake County Regional Office of Education
- Margaret Resnick – Mundelein Park District
- Raymond Rose – Chief, Mundelein Police Department
- Kathy Ryg – State Representative, District 59
- Ashley Ward – Charmm’d Foundation
- Connie Willegal – Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago & Northwest Indiana
Click here to access and read the“Success Stories” which were shared by participants from the 4th Annual Meeting.