Pathways to a Safer Sitka is a community coalition, which is a group of individuals representing diverse organizations, interests, and governmental entities within a community who agree to work together to achieve a common goal.  The coalition is focused on a community approach to address shared risk and protective factors and spans multiple issues impacting Sitka (e.g., violence, substance abuse, mental health, suicide, school dropout, and cultural dislocation). Within Pathways’ goal areas (school climate, home environment, peer culture, and community climate), projects stretch across the socio-ecological model and focus on children, youth, young adults, parents, families, men, and social service providers in both in-school and afterschool settings, the home, and the wider community. 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

Within each focal area, Pathways builds inter- and intra-organizational capacity for primary prevention by developing and updating policies and procedures that support communication and facilitate coordination and collaboration. The resulting partnerships enhance agencies’ ability to address these common risk and protective factors more consistently and comprehensively by aligning efforts and leveraging resources. This collective approach further expands existing strategies to other populations and across the social ecology to reinforce messaging. Finally, Pathways intentionally works to increase the cultural responsiveness and relevancy of all Pathways' strategies. When interlaced with the socio-ecological model, a more comprehensive system of work begins to emerge.