HEART
Healing, Education, Awareness, Resilience, Trauma
Recognizing the strong connection between mental health and community transformation, we’ve combined these efforts into one integrated initiative: HEART. These initiatives focus on reducing trauma and meeting the Resilient Community Standards.
Community Transformation
Resilient Communities 
Our hard work earned the designation of being a Resilient Community! To earn this designation, the Codington County Social Services Advisory Council worked with SD Resilient Communities.
SD Resilient Communities was created by the Center
for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment at the University
of South Dakota School of Health Sciences, along with its partner organizations, to help address factors that put children
at risk for childhood maltreatment. It creates an environment that is trauma-informed so community members understand the effects of experiencing childhood maltreatment. The process identifies existing resources that can be used to strengthen prevention and increase a community’s capacity to collaborate across sectors. Codington Connects strengthens community resilience through collaboration, support, and accessible resources.
The Codington Connects Resilient Community initiative is focused on making the community a safe and healthy place for all of our residents. Through coordinated efforts, the community has come together in an impressive way to address some of the most challenging issues facing our community. These efforts improve our economic outlook as well as make Watertown a better place to live.
Identified Community Transformation Strategies
- Develop and provide training and programming that builds capacity for life skills and resiliency among Codington County residents (adult skills, basic skills, generational poverty).
- Develop and implement mentoring opportunities to build pro-social connections.
- Explore opportunities to provide long-term supports and resources to build capacity for self-sufficiency.
- Explore community perceptions and awareness of social services, stigma related to utilization of social services and/or barriers to access social services.