Higgins landed a job as a community educator with the Alcoholism Council of Butler County, the former name of Envision Partnerships. When she started in 1985, the organization was focused on treatment and discussions about prevention didn’t exist.
“That’s how the core and foundation of our work started,” said Higgins, the CEO of Envision Partnerships. Because her work was under the radar as the agency was focused on treatment, “I was kinda, sorta allowed to carve my own path by default.”
Higgins wasn’t the only educator in the state focused on educating the community on the dangers of alcohol. She and four educators in Southwest Ohio counties — Hamilton, Warren, Clermont and Clinton — get together to support each other.
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Then they connected in doing youth development and youth empowerment, “work that is still a core of the stuff we do today.” Then she was involved in the Teen Institute with her colleagues and met as a group to have a regional institute, which focused on youth development, leadership and help kids have a more wholistic health perspective.
Over the next few years, things fell into place, and some of the initiatives grew because of that core programming, which ultimately created a profession of prevention education, and eventually backed by science.
“I started with my head, my heart and my gut, and science eventually caught up to the things we knew because we had this little support and we were talking amongst ourselves and doing the little bit of reading and things that existed and bringing that together and really helping each other in doing the right things,” Higgins said.
Alcoholism Council of Butler County changed to Envision Partnerships about 10 years ago, which matched the organization’s mission that had been in place since the early 1990s as a prevention education and early intervention agency.
Over the decades, the dangers the community faces have only increased, not just for the individual but for families and the community. Prevention today runs the gamut of dangers for youth and adults, and there is programming and prevention efforts issues like substance abuse, violence, gambling and suicide.
All the work Higgins said she’s done in the field, and all the work of the people who’ve come after her, it takes action.
“This work is baptism by fire. If you’re just watching somebody do it, you’re never going to get good at it,” she said, though admitted those entering the prevention field today has more support than she had as one of its pioneers, and that has her excited because “we’re doing some really innovative stuff.”
It’s hard to stay ahead of the new problems and challenges facing the field of prevention, whether its new pressures or new drugs, and sometimes it’s hard to see successes in trying to make an impact and be an influence.
But that pushes her even harder.
“I still get excited about the possibilities of the things that we can be doing,” Higgins said. “The possibilities are endless, the opportunity to impact is really great.
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
LEADING LADIES OF BUTLER COUNTY
This is part of a series of stories featuring women in Butler County who shape their communities. These stories will feature women who are leading small, medium and large businesses, institutions, and organizations.
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