Gallatin County, MT Community Assessment Report 2020

It is with great pleasure that our organizations proudly come together to share the 2020 Community Assessment Report, Communities That Care, for Gallatin County, MT. For the past year, members from our organizations have been collaborating, organizing, and working to determine the most effective ways to improve the health and well-being of our youth using the Communities That Care framework.

With a focus on prevention, this report aims to identify strategies to decrease high risk behaviors amongst our youth that result in poor health outcomes. We strive to address community issues such as underage drinking, tobacco use, access to firearms, and more to encourage our youth to excel and thrive in Gallatin County, MT.

We are excited to share our Community Assessment Report as a community guide to create a healthy, equitable, and inclusive community where youth are empowered to thrive, feel a sense of belonging, and make meaningful contributions to the world around them.

This report analyzes the results of the Risk and Protective Factor Assessment and data collection completed as part of Gallatin County’s Communities That Care effort. The Communities That Care system is a way for members of a community to work together to prevent youth high risk behaviors, including substance use, delinquency, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, and violence. This system was developed by Dr. David Hawkins and Dr. Richard Catalano. It is based on their research, which has identified risk factors that predict youth high risk behaviors and protective factors that buffer children from risk and help them succeed in life.

A key goal of the Communities That Care effort is to identify which risk factors, protective factors and high risk behaviors are prevalent in our community, and to implement evidence-based programs that address the unique Gallatin County community’s profile. To that end, the Risk and Protective Factor Assessment work group, also called the Data Group, collected and analyzed different data from a variety of sources within Gallatin County, Montana. Then, with input from community partners, this group identified priority risk factors to address, and community strengths.

The assessment was completed using the 2018 Montana Prevention Needs Assessment Survey and other publically available data sources such as the 2017 Community Health Needs Assessment, the 2018 Youth Behavior Risk Survey, and other public data sources.

Please review the full Report for further details of our findings!