Schools

Outgoing One Voice Coordinator Reflects on Her Time With Hopkins

Friday was Brenda Badger's last day on the job.

Brenda Badger has a long history with the Hopkins school district.

Since 2008, she’s been project coordinator for Hopkins Community Coalition: One Voice— drug-prevention effort. She also spent eight years in Hopkins working as a youth program supervisor in the junior highs and three years running the GED testing center for Adult Options in Education.

“My passion has always been working very closely with youth—in particular secondary youth—and I have always had a strong desire around wellness issues,” Badger said.

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Badger’s time with Hopkins has drawn to a close, though. Friday before moving on to take a position with the Anoka-Hennepin School District. She’ll serve as the district’s wellness/SHIP grant coordinator within its Department of Community Education.

Before she left, Hopkins Patch talked with Badger about her time in Hopkins, her interest in youth issues and changing attitudes toward drugs and alcohol.

Find out what's happening in Hopkinswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

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Hopkins Patch: What attracts you to (working with youth and wellness issues)?

Brenda Badger: First of all, I love working with adolescents, and I also know that adolescence is a time of risk-taking and many changes in life. I have also seen the devastation or, when they start to go down that path, how quickly it can impact their life in a negative way. So I think of myself as having been a preventionist long before I was officially a preventionist.

Hopkins Patch: What type of adolescent were you? Were you a risk-taker or were you calm and steady?

Badger: I’ve always been a leader. In high school, I was the student council president of my senior class. I’ve been a swim captain on the swim team. I’ve always been a leadership student. I saw a lot of things happen when I was a kid. I lost two close friends to drunk driving and had seen some other close relationships of mine very impacted by substances. So (my experience) wasn’t so much that of experimenting—but more that I was impacted by that.

Hopkins Patch: Where was home for you?

Badger: I grew up in Cold Springs, MN, and went to ROCORI High School. So I’ve always been a Minnesota native. I have a lot of understanding about the culture of drinking and life in Minnesota because this is where I have lived.

Hopkins Patch: Reaching back to when you first came to Hopkins—maybe even before you took on this position—what was the drug and substance abuse culture of Hopkins at that time?

Badger: I think that there are always some of those things present. Yet I also think we have come a long way because Hopkins, one, is willing to talk about their problems. They look at the data. They share it very openly with their community. And when there are spikes in that data, we talked about it and rallied together and have done something with that data. So I’ve seen that data come down over time. We have been proactive in that we seek the newest research and scientific information out there and then we try our best to share that with various audiences—including parents, staff, professionals, community members. Hopkins, to me, has always really embraced the whole student as a person.

Hopkins Patch: What’s the No. 1 substance abuse or mental health challenge that Hopkins faces?

Badger: You know, I still think the No. 1 issues are around alcohol and then, certainly, marijuana. You just simply have to look at the data. Certainly there’s some small episodes of other substances that come into play, but alcohol and marijuana are still common. And I don’t think that’s just a Hopkins issue. When we look at data statewide, that is also very common that we are not that different from the other communities around us.

Hopkins Patch: What’s the biggest accomplishment that Hopkins has had since you’ve been here?

Badger: For me personally, it’s to know that this work will continue on with some new grant funding. Unfortunately, prevention is dependant and works best if you have some resources and funding to keep the energy really alive. And that has best been served with grants. We have been very fortunate to have had two Drug-Free Communities grants, and now that those have passed on, sustainability was certainly a concern. But some of the other accomplishments that we have done that I just am so proud of—and it’s not what I did; it’s what this community did—is some of the prevention steps: the social host ordinances; speaking to the adults in the community, for example the One Voice, Our Voice video that was created three years ago; just the ongoing parent connections that have happened with tools and resources for parents in the community.

Hopkins Patch: You did mention the sustainability. Can you tell me a little bit about how you were feeling when the one grant expired and you had the School Board ? What were you thinking back then?

Badger: It was a very nerve-wracking time because I put my heart and soul— To me, it’s like I know that we are in difficult economic times—and I don’t disregard any decisions that anyone takes lightly because I know we have class sizes that are very important, we have equity issues that are very important, we have increasing numbers of students on free and reduced lunch. We have many needs in our community, and within those needs, substance abuse matters are just one of many important issues. So to know that the community continues to value and want to sustain this work says so much—so much—about this community. So it was just flattering and an honor to work with Hopkins schools when the School Board made that announcement that they would sustain things for a year. Certainly, there was this expectation, though, that we would do our best to find new sources of funding to help with this work. And so I did work very hard at pursuing other grants that would help keep prevention work alive.

Hopkins Patch: How did it feel when that decision finally came down (that )?

Badger: I’m shocked. Amazing. Wonderful. But I also knew how hard we worked. We had 38 letters of support from the community. I mean, every sector of the community that we were asked to include, we had represented. When you need to do something around here—and you know it’s going to be really hard—I ask and they just step up. The community really steps up. It’s very amazing.

[Full disclosure: Hopkins Patch submitted a letter as part of the grant request stating that it covers Hopkins Community Coalition activities as an independent news organization. — Ed.]

Hopkins Patch: You’re moving to Anoka-Hennepin (school district) now. Were the two related at all? Was the difficulty of funding here, was that at all related to your decision to seek employment in Anoka Hennepin?

Badger: No, really the decision for moving on to Anoka-Hennepin is a combination of personal and professional goals. It will be very different going from a small, quaint school district that has one high school (and) six elementary schools into a district that is the largest in the state and one of the largest in the nation—having five high schools and about 12 middle schools and I don’t even remember how many elementary schools. It’s huge. For me, I live in the northwest metro, and I am a parent of two teenagers. I am a parent who is trying very hard to “walk the talk”—and that is I want to be able to be engaged and around with my family more. This has been a job that has been pretty demanding, and it involves a lot of different hours. Even though I love it and put my heart and soul in it, it has taken away some of the time I have with my family. I’m trying very hard to also be the parent that not only talks the message of prevention, but also to live it. The opportunity in Anoka-Hennepin will just better fit my family life, and honestly that is a huge part of this.

Hopkins Patch: I’m sure you’ve learned a lot in this job. What advice or message would you have for your successor?

Badger: Never underestimate the value of relationships. Your relationships within the community are critical to your survival in this work. You are a facilitator, but you are not the expert. The experts are among you. Work on those relationships. It will pay off. When you build those relationships, you empower other to speak with one voice in the work they’re doing.


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