The community coalitions and task forces facilitated by Missoula Public Health work on different projects and initiatives to create positive changes in our community. By working together, these coalitions aim to improve the overall health and well-being of everyone in our community. They believe that when we come together, we can make a big difference and create a better future for all of us.
Other coalitions
The Access and Functional Needs (AFN) Subcommittee wants everyone in Missoula County to be ready for and able to recover from emergencies and disasters.
We meet every three months with different groups like local government, businesses, tribes, and non-profits to make sure that everyone, including those with special needs, is included in Missoula Public Health’s emergency plans.
The Fetal, Infant, Child, Maternal Mortality Review Program (FICMMR) is a statewide-effort to reduce preventable fetal, infant, child, and maternal deaths.
The FICMMR review teams identify gaps, barriers, and risk factors, and works in partnership to strengthen systems. The FICMMR teams form alliances and mobilize resources to educate communities to reduce preventable deaths. The goal of the FICMMR program is to reduce risk factors and decrease the number of preventable deaths through educational outreach, and evidence-based and best-practice prevention initiatives.
Click here for more information from the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention.
The Frenchtown Community Coalition (FCC) is a group working towards preventing young people from using harmful substances, like drugs and alcohol in Frenchtown
They started in 2008 and have two main goals:
- To unite the community around helping young people.
- To decrease the amount of young people who use drugs and alcohol.
The FCC achieves this by including young people and getting different parts of the community to work together. We want to make sure things that might make young people use drugs happen less, and we want to make sure things that help young people make good choices happen more. By working together, we can help young people grow up to be healthy and able to handle tough situations.
Click here to learn more. Have additional questions? Click here to contact FCC!
Led by Missoula Public Health, along with many community partners. We want a community where every life is valued and where fatal overdoses are prevented. Our goal is to impact culture, policies and programs in Missoula County to save lives, reduce risk, and remove barriers to care for all. Click here to contact the Substance Use Disorder Prevention team to learn more.
Current projects:
- promoting safe medication storage and disposal
- safe syringe disposal
- preventing overdose with Narcan and fentanyl test strips.
The Missoula Perinatal Substance Use Network is a group of community members and organizations working together to reduce the number of children removed from their families because of substance use during and after pregnancy.
The Missoula Perinatal Substance Use Network is a group of community members and organizations working together to reduce the number of children removed from their families because of substance use during and after pregnancy.
We focus on helping families affected by substance use during the perinatal period (pregnancy through age three). Our goal is to create a community where families feel safe asking for help, can get the care they need, and can stay together in a healthy, lasting way. We also believe it’s very important to listen to and include parents who have gone through these experiences, and we work to involve them in ways that make them feel supported and heard.
The Network is currently focused on two main projects:
1. Trauma-Informed Organizations
This project looks at how we can make it easier for parents to talk about substance use and ask for help. We’re working with hospitals, health care providers, and parents with lived experience to make systems more supportive and understanding. The goal is to identify and strengthen pathways for disclosing perinatal substance use & seeking support.
2. Family Treatment and Recovery Residences
This project is about learning more about treatment and recovery homes in Montana for parents and families. We’re working with different treatment centers to understand how many spots are available and how many families still need support. You can read about this work in the 2023 Montana Parent/Child Treatment and Recovery Housing Landscape Scan and the 2024 Montana Family SUD Treatment and Recovery Residences Landscape Scan.
Get Involved
The Missoula Perinatal Substance Use Network meets once a month on the second Wednesday from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Contact us to find out where the meetings are held or how to join virtually.
Want to learn more about how this group got started? Check out the 2021 PSU Network Report.
Project Tomorrow Montana is a coalition that works to make sure fewer people die by suicide.
We do this by working with community partners on projects that increase awareness, promote prevention, and support intervention. We meet on the first Wednesday of the month at 1 p.m. Click here to contact us and get involved.
Current projects:
The purpose of the Missoula SPACECAT Network is to create a culture of teamwork amongst our partners in the service of our community by aligning groups working on Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) prevention.
Suicide, overdose, and ACEs share many risk and protective factors. When our community comes together to work on these shared risk and protective factors, we can increase our collective impact on multiple issues facing our community and use limited resources wisely.
The SPACECAT Network formed in 2023 when Missoula Public Health received its first grant from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) to increase our capacity to work at the intersection of suicide, overdose, and ACEs. Using the Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Toolkit from NACCHO, the SPACECAT Network developed a strategic plan. Missoula Public Health received a second round of funding from NACCHO to begin implementing this plan in 2024.
While these grants have ended, Missoula Public Health has sustained this work by including it in the 2025-2030 Community Health Improvement Plan. The SPACECAT Network meets bi-monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.