Welcome to the Carroll County Resource
Council & Prevention Planning Board
Allow us to brag about Amelia Villines, who as a 12-year-old was our poster
girl for Smoke-Free Soccer, and while
at Stanford University went on to
play on the U.S. National Women's
Rugby Team with an eye on
the Olympics.
We're a non-profit that has been serving Carroll County since 1985.
During the 1990s, we were one of 76 statewide Transition to Employment coalitions that administered job-training programs. But we were one of only two coalitions in the state to fulfill our sustainability plan. That is, we continued after funding ended.
In that project, we initiated a number of youth outreaches, giving low-income and at-risk teens a first job experience and conflict-resolution training by mentoring them as soccer referees. Our certified refs worked venues across northwest Arkansas and southern Missouri -- and even a tournament in central Florida. After state funding ended, we kept that program going through Common Ground, a statewide youth violence-prevention initiative, which we replicated at seven other sites, receiving top marks from our independent evaluator.
Another element of the Transition to Employment coalition was in Carroll County's three alternative high schools, where we developed two job-skills curriculums, Capitalism in the Classroom and How to Get and Keep a Job.
Additionally, we collaborated with school nurses in all three school districts, providing pregnancy-prevention instruction and teaching materials. After coalition funding ended, we sustained that program with from a federal abstinence education program. Our full-time abstinence instructor taught in the schools and offered an after-school abstinence club at the Berryville Community Center.
We continue similar outreach. We were the grantee of state child-abuse prevention funding that allowed us to collaborate with North Arkansas
College to provide Circle of Love services to teen parents still in school.
Using lessons we learned about the effectiveness of teens as peer presenters, we went on to offer anti-drug, anti-violence, anti-smoking and anti-obesity programs featuring teen role models. We've found soccer to be an effective medium -- since it bridges so many cultural divides.
We have offered a variety of prevention messages using soccer during phys-ed classes, in after-school programs and during teen-led skills clinics at venues statewide -- and at annual Red Ribbon Rallies at the University of Arkansas for northwest Arkansas fifth graders. We continue to have close ties with our local youth soccer program.
Today, the Resource Council continues its diverse outreaches. The youth referee programs continue, sustained by local youth programs. Our first youth outreach alumni have entered the job force and a number have finished college, the first in their families to do so.
Salvador Hernandez is in med school, Henry Pineda was named assistant soccer coach at Williams Baptist University. Emilio Trujillo is a CPA. Balta Lemus is a pharmacist. Collin Delavin is headed to Harvard.
Our strength is in the volunteer involvement of our membership. Our chair has pushed teen drug-prevention summits annually in all three school districts. Our treasurer singlehandedly each year has raised around $130,000 for the Carroll County Senior Activity Center. Our secretary is involved in local pre-school projects and rehab outreaches in the Carroll County jail. And our executive director is regularly called upon by the City of Green Forest, seeking help writing proposals for infrastructure projects -- help which we provide at no charge to the city.
We're collaborating with Jeremiah House to provide locally sourced food to local school cafeterias.
