OUR HISTORY

The I-70 Corridor Communities That Care (I-70 CCTC) coalition began in 2016 through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Communities That Care Initiative. Forty-seven communities participated in CTC to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors among youth. This multi-year grant was funded through state marijuana tax dollars. The I-70 CCTC, in collaboration with the Adams County Health Department and Bennett Park and Rec, used the funding to support efforts focused on the following areas along the corridor: Watkins, Bennett, Strasburg, Byers, and Deer Trail.

New Beginnings

Members of the I‑70 Corridor Communities That Care (CCTC) Coalition were deeply disappointed to learn that their decade of work in youth substance misuse prevention would not be funded in the 2026–2031 grant cycle. Rather than allow this progress to stall, several long‑standing coalition members took a proactive step and created a nonprofit organization, Corridor Teen and Family Center (CTFC), dedicated to sustaining and expanding the prevention work built over the past ten years. This new nonprofit ensures that the relationships, momentum, and youth‑driven initiatives developed through the coalition will continue well beyond the grant’s end.

Over the past decade, coalition members have not only delivered prevention messaging—they have invested in building trust, shared understanding, and strong partnerships across multiple sectors of the community. Their efforts have brought schools, families, youth, businesses, and local leaders together around a unified vision for upstream prevention. These alliances have strengthened the community’s capacity to work collaboratively, creating a healthier environment where young people can grow, live, and thrive.

As we move forward, we remain committed to fostering community involvement and strengthening the connections that make our towns resilient. We welcome and encourage more community members, business owners, and youth to join us in continuing to build a welcoming environment where young people can be themselves while we focus on upstream prevention, positive mental health, and physical well‑being.

OUR GOALS

Stakeholders, community members, key leaders, and youth came together to further evidence-based community change focused on preventing substance misuse in our community. 

OUR STRATEGIES

Systems change strategies guide us in upstream, community- and societal-level changes to ultimately reduce risk factors and protect youth from adverse health and social outcomes. These strategies are focused on local systems change, not on changes that may occur at the state or federal level. From these strategies, our coalition has created specific action plans to implement initiatives selected based on local risk and protective factor data and community buy-in. 

ABOUT THE PROCESS

Using the knowledge we have gained from implementing the Communities That Care program, we plan to continue bringing together community members from all sectors and backgrounds to unite as a local coalition and use what science shows works to build healthier communities. CTC impacts communities over time because it addresses the root causes of violence, substance misuse, and delinquency among youth, and promotes positive development and mental health.

The goal of CTC in Colorado is to give communities the skills they need to make lasting change in their community. CTC builds the capacity of parents, youth, and other community members to identify local problems and promote local solutions to transform their community. As vocal advocates for prevention, they take ownership of local issues and drive funding and decisions toward true community needs and evidence-based solutions.

One of those solutions is to implement the Science of the Positive into our work. This means focusing on the positive things our youth, schools, businesses, and community are doing. When we focus on the positive, the positive becomes the norm rather than the idea we are seeking.