Partners Make a Difference
PARTNERSHIP SPOTLIGHT-Taking it to Heart
In the projects we share across the community AND our daily lives, our Rock County office is listening. Check in with people in your life. Get your family, friends, and coworkers involved. Share positive ways to improve how you feel. Learn something new! Take care of yourself! Winter nights may be longer, but together we can find a way to stay warm and bright.
Health and Well-Being means finding new ways to stay connected with others and to take care of yourself, specifically related to mental health. We offer WeCope to teach adults the skills to meet life’s challenges in a healthy way. We also offer Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR), which teaches individuals to how help someone that is in a mental health crisis specifically, suicide. Learning to Breathe improves teens’ awareness of their emotions and how to manage them. Additionally, we collaborate with partners to create opportunities to offer Adult Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid.
FoodWIse knows the way to someone’s heart is through food. One workshop series happening in Rock County is called “Around the Table.” Although on the surface it may appear to be a nutrition education curriculum, it also brings to the forefront trauma-informed and resiliency approaches. It is designed to build food, nutrition, cooking literacy, while also integrating social-emotional learning and using trauma-sensitive facilitation.
‘Sparks’ are what bring you excitement and joy. Wisconsin 4-H encourages youth to explore their ‘sparks’ with the support of caring adults. We know this keeps many youth and adult hearts happy! When we work together (Juntos), we can set new goals and celebrate our steps towards them! Most importantly, our youth leaders are always checking in!
Make Your Own 'Heart Happy' Kit
At Division of Extension, Rock County, connection makes our hearts happy! Learn more using the following resources.
Move Your Body Wondering how? Here are some suggested exercises. Nervous about getting started? These are ways to make it work for you!
Deep Breathing Why would I blow bubbles? Breath deep and count the ways taking a breath can help you!
– Mindful Art Breathing Sticks (video)
– Blow Bubbles (video)
Doing Arts and Crafts Create Beauty because coloring is good for your health Did you know? Coloring can even relax you!
Getting Out in Nature Did you know that our environment impacts our wellness? Nature can heal, soothe and restore us!
Choose your favorite ways to take care of yourself (and not just by yourself) (PDF)
Choosing to make your heart happy:
- decreases depression symptoms
- having walkable and bikeable neighborhoods increases social interaction and community cohesion
- lowers stress levels and stimulates feel-good endorphins
- increases self confidence
- improves energy and mood
Try using this Feelings Wheel (PDF) to name how you’re feeling. Rock County is listening.
● Rock County Crisis Line 608-757-5025
● Got Your Back app
● Nami Rock County
● Supporting You(th) Mental Health Facts Sheets
When the plants are resting, we can still be growing. Agriculture and Horticulture programming can bring you peace of mind for what’s next, next year. Navigating Your Ag Business: From Stress to Success is an Extension course designed to help farmers and their families reduce their stress through targeted planning. Ask Your Gardening Question LIVE: Monthly Plant Health Q&A (Mondays at 1:30 p.m.) is an opportunity to ask questions about your trees and shrubs, garden vegetables and ornamentals, and lawn.
Why talk about Mental Health in Rock County?
In Rock County, 17.3% of adults aged 18 and older report they receive insufficient social and emotional support (SSM Health Community Health Needs Assessment 2021). According to County Health Rankings, Fourteen percent of adults reported experiencing poor mental health for 14 or more of the last 30 days. According to the 2020 Wisconsin Statewide Health Assessment suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 15-34 and the fifth leading cause of death among children aged 5-14 in Wisconsin.
In Partnership: Division of Extension and Rock County
UW-Madison Division of Extension, Rock County recognizes the importance of our partners and partnership. Division of Extension is built on the Wisconsin Idea. This means that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Division of Extension has first and foremost a special partnership with our local Rock County Government. Local conversations influence which topics are supported by Educators in the county. We are guided by the Agriculture & Extension Education Committee who we share our impacts with on a monthly basis.
Furthermore, Rock County Departments collaborate with Division of Extension programming in our primary areas of health, agriculture and youth. These include Rock County Land Conservation, Human Services, and Public Health Departments.
We are lucky to have individual stakeholders and partners of organizations of all kinds in Rock County. This makes our innovation diverse and relevant to our shared goals. The types of partnerships with UW-Division of Extension take many forms in Rock County. They include government agencies, school districts, higher education, informal networks and coalitions, cooperatives, non profits and private businesses. Read a full report on Rock County partnerships this past year created by our Data Governance Team. (PDF)
Hardworking – Determined – Compassionate – Creative – Fun
These are words we use to describe our Rock County partners. Ultimately it is our partners who express best who we are and strive to be. We invite you to click on the drop down banners below to hear from some of our valued partners.
Teach & Learn
Building New Skills
“Teen Cuisine has been an engaging program that teaches young adults healthy alternatives to everyday snacks. Adding the leadership section gave the students the opportunity to showcase their newfound skills. The students still talk about this program to this day.”
~ Devin Blay-Stahl,
Beloit Learning Academy
Making Informed Choices
A part of Life Recovery is learning important life skills. We are so blessed to have Karen J., a FoodWIse Nutrition Educator, lead a weekly class with the GIFTS guests. They learn to make healthy choices while distinguishing between food wants and food needs. A HUGE thank you to Karen for her dedication to being such a valuable piece of our mission!
~ GIFTS Men’s Shelter Program Director
Supporting Others and Ourselves
“Thanks to WeCope I started my own self-love journal where I write everything down that I do for self-love/self-care. It’s an ongoing list and it’s anything from the massage that I got the other day to a boundary that I put up with someone! I am very excited to keep it going!”
~ WeCope Participant
“This class is very good at keeping me calmer and being nice everyday.”
~ WeCope Participant
Excitement and Engagement
“We love the lessons! The kids are so engaged! They talk about food for days and what they eat. Ms. Maria is so good at what she does and is awesome with the students!”
~ Elementary School Teacher
Lead & Serve
Community Leadership
“It has been good to see the youth get involved with what they eat and how that affects your body. The Teen Cuisine series adds depth to the students volunteering in the Merrill Community Sharing Garden.”
~ Community Action instructor
Purpose and Confidence
“Due to her involvement in our Sexual Violence Prevention Team, we have been able to purposefully and confidently engage youth leaders from all three middle schools in Janesville. Through Erin’s support and guidance over 80 youth were exposed to different ways to engage in leadership and explore what types of leaders they are. To say that her involvement in our team is appreciated would be an understatement as our work would not be near as impactful or forward moving without her investment.”
~ Xandi Finn Janesville Mobilizing 4 Change
Culturally Relevant Collaboration
“I have worked with Erin Conway on multiple projects during my time as director of the Clinton Public Library. Our library was selected for the ALA Libraries Transforming Communities grant in 2021. As part of the grant, we hosted multiple conversations with the Latinx community to build a strategic plan to better partner with them. We struggled to get people to speak during our first conversation. After Erin partnered with us for our second and third conversations, we saw a significant growth in individual input and collaboration at the table.”
~ Joseph Langer Clinton Public Library
Partnership Programming in Progress
Below are examples of ongoing cross programmatic efforts and countywide partner engagement. Explore the resources or click on the drop down tabs to learn more.
Teen Cuisine Coders
Teen Cuisine Coders is a 4-H classroom club. Current participants are students at Beloit Learning Academy and Rock River Charter Schools.
4-H Members complete Teen Cuisine, a curriculum designed to teach youth (grades 6-12) key concepts about nutrition, food preparation/cooking, and food safety. Hands on learning at each participating school site becomes a shared leadership initiative using virtual meetings to connect. 4-H members work together and with community organizations to positively impact Rock County nutrition efforts.
We celebrate our impact not only by sharing new resources with our community (See Below), but also by marketing our new learning and leadership on our resumes! (Marketing You PDF)
Teen Cuisine Coders 4-H was a response to food insecurity in Rock County and Wisconsin Health Literacy data indicating that individuals are unlikely to utilize health resources provided to understand and act in their best interest. Our youth leaders ‘crack the code’ when it comes to nutrition and community needs!
Building Youth Voice
The Youth Advocates for Community Health (YACH) initiative creates youth-adult partnerships that allows youth to lead and generate energy among their peers (and adults) to improve the health in their community in ways that matter to them.
Extension provides a YACH guidebook filled with resources for planning a youth-led project through the five steps of action:
- Choose your Battle – assess the health in your community and narrow down to one area of focus
- Raise Awareness – speak with community partners to learn about their work and build support
- Make your action plan- develop a plan for your project
- Implement your plan – follow the action plan to complete the project
- Evaluate your plan – assess your project and how you want to move forward
In Rock County. . . Youth Advocates for Community Health is only the beginning!
