Travis Fellows

Travis Fellows serves as the Coordinator for Community Coalitions of Virginia, or CCoVA, where his work centers on supporting and strengthening prevention coalitions across the state.  In his role, Travis often works behind the scenes – connecting partners, supporting initiatives, and making sure communities have the foundation they need to be effective over the long term.  At the core of his work is a simple but meaningful goal: helping communities build stronger systems that support healthier outcomes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everyone, and welcome to Voices of Hope. I'm Ross Wilsie. And I'm Mike Wade. Each episode, we sit down to talk about what it means to live well, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and beyond.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We'll look at how wellness shapes us as individuals, families, communities, and even the wider world around us.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Through real stories and honest conversations, we'll explore what hope looks like and how it grows, right here in the New River Valley. Thanks for joining us. This is Voices of Hope. Travis Fellows serves as the coordinator for Community Coalitions of Virginia, or SOCOVA, where his work centers on supporting and strengthening prevention coalitions across the state. In his role, Travis often works behind the scenes, connecting partners, supporting initiatives, and making sure communities have the foundation they need to be effective over the long term. At the core of his work is a simple but meaningful goal: helping communities build stronger systems that support healthier outcomes. Travis, thank you for joining us on the Voices of Hope podcast. Mike and I have had the opportunity to work with you for a little while now. But would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself, where you're from, your education, and your work experience uh you might want to share? And and how did you become involved with community coalitions of Virginia? Or we'll refer to it, I guess, from here on as Sokova.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, I mean, really, my story starts down North Carolina, but I've been in Virginia since I was a kid. So uh down in central Virginia, went to college in Hampton, Sydney, and then pretty much right after college, I moved to Richmond and I kind of got stuck there for about 15 years. But then a few years ago, I um actually moved out here to a small rural town in uh Shenandoah Valley, uh, getting back to my rural roots a little bit. Um professionally, you know, I I graduated college in 2007. And if for for anyone who remembers, I was a bit of a weird time uh financially, you know, housing, all the all the things. Um, so I kind of fell into uh a job working EMS because I'd done that as a volunteer uh while I was in college. And so I worked for a private company for a few years, and then I that led to me working for the city of Richmond, uh doing the same thing, EMS. And then finally I ended up working at an emergency department at a large hospital. And somewhere in there, kind of in that transition period, I decided that if I was going to do anything that was gonna be better paying and kind of get me anywhere, I would need to go back and get a master's degree. And so I chose to do that in public health. And honestly, at that time, you know, I had no thoughts um kind of about the whole substance use prevention world. I had really never even heard of prevention until that point. Um, but the you know, the first job I landed after that was actually at a nearby community services board. Um, and so a few years into that, I started getting involved with SOCOVA. Uh, there was an opening and I ended up getting this coordinator position. Um, and I've kind of been here doing this as a part-time job on top of my my full-time day job ever since. So about three years now.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Nice. So, Travis, is there anything in particular that makes this work especially appealing to you?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Yeah, you know, if we're if we're talking about prevention in general, um, I would say this goes all the way back to kind of that reason that I chose that public health degree. And when I was working on ambulances or in the hospital, I kind of came to realize we're we're constantly responding to moments of crisis where, you know, many of those uh were entirely preventable had someone become involved before that. Uh that really illustrated to me the problem, the idea that we can be much more impactful if we can get ahead of the problems before they occur, um, which for those of you in the prevention field know we call that working upstream. And, you know, this concept also drives that that need to work with other agencies and organizations, which I guess is kind of why it makes so much sense to do this work in coalitions, which is obviously a big part of what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, and I will I'll just admit I had not heard of community prevention coalitions before I started in the this position uh just what four years ago. And so I'm sure there are other people listening right now who have never heard of a community prevention coalition. So, how might you summarize what that is? What is a coalition and what is it not?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

So at its core, uh a coalition is simply a group of people from different places in the community who are all connected by a common desire, if you will. Uh, that can be based on a number of problem areas, but generally speaking, the coalitions we're working with in SOCOVA are working to address unhealthy substance use or addiction of some variety. Uh, when we narrow down to talking about prevention-specific coalitions, we see that many of these are going to be focusing on youth populations because again, we're we're trying to get involved before they've had a chance to develop those problem behaviors. Uh, one misconception I feel I see a bit of is that the community coalitions are simply another like just a monthly meeting. Um, and while it is important for coalitions to meet regularly to keep everyone on the same page, we do emphasize that they should be action focused. Um, you know, it's great to have the fire chief and the health department and school board members and all of these other individuals in one room, but ideally they're all work actively working towards a common goal with some visible results.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah. You sort of alluded to uh or made reference to the issues around substance use in particular uh in general terms, but um I wonder if you might drill down a little bit and talk about some of the key issues that Sokova members across the state seem to be focusing their efforts on these days.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah. Um, you know, there's a there's a coalition trainer I know who has a catchphrase that I'm gonna borrow here. Um when you've seen one coalition, you've seen one coalition. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Um and I've heard Mike, I've heard Mike say that before. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Yeah, I'm sure he's met Dorothy. Yeah, yeah. Um but uh, you know, it's it sounds a little pithy, but it it really captures that idea that every community has different local conditions, and those are going to drive unique approaches to this work. Um, you know, many of the coalitions that I see and work with were created during usually that kind of that first two waves of the opioid crisis when prescription drugs and heroin were really just kind of wrecking havoc across our communities. Uh, you know, while this continues, you know, to be a major concern, like most of them are still working on that. We are seeing more just kind of general awareness in other organizations that are also working on that one issue. You know, you have things like the opioid abatement settlement funds that have been used to create local task forces and things like that. So this has kind of allowed a lot of these coalitions to begin uh looking at some other concerns in their communities. Uh, and I'm I'm gonna throw out a couple of numbers here, and I just want to kind of clarify that this was just kind of from polling um attendees at some of our monthly meetings in the recent past. But uh I see that youth vaping is a big focus right now. About 70% of coalitions seem to be working on that in some capacity in the last year. Um, problem gambling initiatives are rising. Uh, more than half of the attendees said that they were current either currently working to address problem gambling or that they plan to within a year. Um, and something that really only crossed my radar in the last year, uh, but seems to I'm I'm hearing a lot more about it recently, is the idea of digital safety, especially when we're talking about youth. And I'm sure a lot of that's been driven by all the news and advancements and everything with AI. But they're also discussing, you know, the prevalence of drug sales through social media and mental health concerns of too much too much screen time. So we're seeing a lot more kind of momentum picking up on that front. But the one that I'm kind of keeping my eye eye on that I know that coalitions have talked about, but I haven't necessarily seen a lot coming out of yet is cannabis. Um, here in Virginia, we're poised to legalize uh retail cannabis this year, more than likely. And I don't know that we're truly prepared for what this is going to look like in our communities.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Definitely on the radar of uh at least one of our local coalitions for sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, we need to be ready. Um well, you sort of I feel like you've answered this in a couple of ways um already, but maybe just to give it uh a more defined answer, why do you think it's important that communities like ours have a robust and and a thriving prevention coalition?

SPEAKER_02 8:40

I mean, the the easy answer is prevention work is huge, right? When you start looking at all these issues that we want to get ahead of, it becomes clear that it's just this monumental task that we're trying to take on. And when you couple that with the challenges of, you know, just working within the constraints of often understaffed agencies. Um and increasingly these days, we're seeing some unreliability with grant funding. And it's not hard to see that, you know, we can accomplish more if we're working with others and kind of putting it all together. When you're able to pull the resources of multiple, you know, public and private organizations, and then you can activate concerned parents and other citizens, you're gonna be able to accomplish a lot more together. So the coalition acts as the organizing force, and perhaps more importantly, it provides that opportunity for training and education. Um, you know, passion will get a lot of things done. But when you can back that up with the understanding of proper methods and skills, you really do have that opportunity to amplify the messaging.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, it kind of does take a whole lot of different different types of people, doesn't it? Just, you know, somebody with a lot of passion, somebody with a lot of organizational skills who can get people uh organized and ready to go and and and moving. So yeah, that's what I've seen at least. It really does take quite a number of different skills and and personalities. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Travis, can you speak to some of the barriers or challenges that might prevent a coalition from being successful or effective?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

I you know, I'll pick up right where Ross just left off there. Um, one of the barriers that I see is the difficulty in having, you know, a dozen or more people and personalities all in one conversation. Uh, you know, even when there's an overarching goal that's shared by everybody in the room, individuals can still have strong opinions about kind of the best way to get there. And I think that, you know, a lot of what we can do as coalitions is investing in that kind of training for leadership, which I know it's not the it's not the most glamorous or sexy of ideas, but it can really help to keep everyone together when things start to get rocky. And uh, you know, another big barrier I touched on already, but funding. Funding can be a huge barrier. Yeah. Uh many of our coalitions receive federal grant dollars, uh, whether that's through an affiliation with their local community services board here in Virginia, or something like a drug-free communities uh grant. Uh when those funds, you know, when they're either removed or when a grant cycle ends, it can create huge challenges if the coalition hasn't spent some time thinking about sustainability. Um, I often hear people talk about, you know, always planning two years down the road because you just never know what's going to happen with your funding and you want to be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. And I I really feel like coalition work is such a slow burn sometimes that you really have to be intentional about taking the time to foster relationships and cultivate that sense of um ownership that it takes among the people around the table to feel like they're actively engaged and a part of what's happening, and they're not just bystanders. Uh and and the the consistency of the relationship and the trust, all the things that go into the dynamics of human connection, uh, I think are just so important to coalition work. You can't just have a logic model and identify the things you're gonna go after and expect that to get it done. Um, it really takes the people to make it work.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah, and you know, on that note about trust, uh, I had the opportunity to attend a coalition meeting uh just this past week, and they are a relatively newly formed coalition, but they're not the first one in their area. I think there have been three or four attempts in the past that have had some degree of success and then fizzled out. And when they were starting to get this new coalition up and running, one of the big pieces of feedback that they heard was, why should we trust you? We've gone through this before. And so not only, you know, are we looking at building that trust within the room to sustain things, you know, the momentum, the activities that the coalition is actively working on, but we want to be thinking about the future. You know, if if we don't do it right now, we may be making the job more difficult in the future.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, it's a great way to look at it. Yeah. So um, in thinking about some young people that have joined uh coalitions I've been involved with, whenever that happens or whenever they come on for maybe a presentation or or something like that, I feel like there's this spark of energy. You know, people are like, oh, there's some young people, and and um, and that gives that gives us some some hope and a little bit of energy. So how how can we get more young people to be involved in in prevention coalitions and care about prevention in general? You you're only asking the easy ones today, right? Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

No, you know, I I think when when yes, everybody gets very excited to have youth involved, and rightfully so. Um, not only because I think it's very impactful to have them involved, but sometimes it can be rare to see youth taking that active role. Um, I think one thing that we're seeing is that this the younger generation now has more of this um this willingness to talk openly about things like mental health. We're seeing on social media, we're seeing them, you know, just active in the communities. And I think if we can tap into that, that they can be an incredibly effective resource for reaching their peers. Uh there's there's that saying nothing about us without us. Yeah. Uh, and I think we really need to embrace that when we're working with youth. Uh, they don't they don't want to hear from a bunch of old people, myself included. So we really do need to figure out how to get them to spread that message for us.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Absolutely. I like that nothing about us without us. I hadn't heard that. It's a good one to keep uh in your mental file there. Yes, definitely. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, uh, Travis, what's the best part of your job?

SPEAKER_02 14:54

100%. I would have to say it's getting to meet so many people that are just much more knowledgeable and talented than myself. Um absolutely. You're being modest. Uh, you know, every so often I'll I'll catch a comment uh or I'll overhear something and someone will accuse me of being an expert, whether that's in prevention or coalitions or you know, something of that nature. And I have to very quickly remind them that that couldn't be further from the truth. Um, you know, as as the coordinator here, I get to I get to handle the administrative tasks of running Sokova. I get to attempt to make the meetings worthy of your time to attend, uh, but I'm no expert. When someone asks me how to accomplish something like a specific task, I'm usually answering with something to the effect of, hey, you should go talk talk to Mike and Ross and figure out how they did their hope campaign and try to emulate that. Or, you know, people again, the youth question. I'm always like, if you want to get youth involved, you need to go down to Hampton Newport News, you need to talk to Anton and Chantel and figure out what they're doing because they just always have incredible energy with their youth. So this role has allowed me to kind of keep a pulse on what's happening across the Commonwealth. And when I'm lucky, I get to share that with others. And I would say that's the best part of the job.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

That's great. Yeah. Well, you do a great job. You really do.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Oh, thank you. So we we like to ask people about their their personal wellness and hope and all that. So how we'll start with wellness. How do you maintain your personal wellness? Well, I am the wrong person to ask that question.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

I would say personal wellness is a constant challenge to say the least. You're not alone. For for me, it's it's generally always something to do with spending time in nature. It's always kind of been a key piece of the puzzle. Um, you know, that can be getting out and doing some hiking or some kayaking or something active like that, which I don't know about y'all, but I feel like there's just not enough time to kind of squeeze those kind of big activities in anymore. Um, you know, I'm I'm I'm starting to get older and I'm starting to embrace some of those stereotypical middle-aged hobbies like birding, um, which gets me out of the house. It gets I I get out into the state parks, and that, you know, that kind of serves to restore my battery there a little bit. But, you know, the one thing if I if I had to suggest this one activity for anyone wellness related, it's always garden. Um, I've been gardening for a number of years now, and you know, it's therapeutic to kind of get outside, get that fresh air, get some, get your hands dirty, you know. Yeah. But then it has that added benefit of you're producing something. You're making those those healthy fruits and vegetables that I'm sure most of us could stand to eat a few more of. Um, and I think that I found that very encouraging because then that leads to maybe wanting to cook a little bit more or maybe pay more attention to what you're eating as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

That or you're just feeding all of the deer, uh, which is our is our experience. So uh that can be a problem. Yeah. We're we're figuring it out though. We got it.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah. Well, Travis, we can't have you on the Voices of Hope podcast after all, without asking you what the word hope means to you. So what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

I'm gonna take you on a little bit of a walk here. All right. 200 years ago, the average life expectancy in the United States was around 40 years old, which hits real close to home because as we're recording this, I turned 40 tomorrow. Um, thank you. But so we if if you look at it now, we've roughly doubled that number. Uh, we're, I think some somewhere around 79, 80 is the average uh life expectancy. And there's this common misconception that this is because people simply died, you know, like oh, you hit 40, you got around 40 and you died off. But in reality, it's because it's an average and it's heavily skewed by back then high rates of infant mortality. And then we had all these advances in science and healthcare, and we've been able to prevent a large number of those early-in-life deaths. And some of that comes from, you know, big advances like you have uh antibiotics and pharmaceuticals and all these magic cures and everything that you know keep people from dying. But some of that was simply just we figured out that doctors should wash their hands before delivering babies.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

You know, things that seem so common sense to us now. And so when I think about that, it reminds me that, you know, we've come a long way as a society where we're capable of evaluating situations, recognizing problems, following the evidence to reach these incredible solutions that benefit the whole population, which for those of us in prevention should sound familiar. And so, you know, when I when I see the news cycle and it's it's starting to feel overwhelming, or the job starts to feel extra heavy, or maybe I just feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, I can look back at this history and know that on a long enough timeline, we tend to move towards those positive improvements that create a better tomorrow for for everybody. And so I guess that's a just a really long-winded way of saying that hope to me means persistent patience. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I like it. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

It's a new one for me. I mean, it's a it's always a good idea, I think, to sort of step back and take a look at the the broader picture.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah, you know, in prevention, we talk about doing things on a 15-year, 20-year, 30-year outlook. And it can be difficult to think that, hey, the things that we're doing these days, well, it's not going to impact people this week. Right. So having having a way to maintain that hope is vital, I think, to to stick with it. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Well, as we kind of come to the end here, do you have any final words of wisdom you'd like to share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 20:53

So, you know, this is something I had to think about a little bit, but uh in my role in in Sokova, you know, we talked about kind of why it's so great and I get to meet all these people. One thing that I've kind of realized, you know, I've I've never considered myself to be great with geography. Um you know, really. And that became really apparent uh because I'm interacting with organizations that span all across this this huge state, you know, and Virginia is huge, you know, it's it's it's shaped weird, so it be it becomes longer and you know harder to get to different places. And I think there's 133 cities and counties, um, which we have coalitions representing all of those, thankfully. Um, you know, there are there are parts of of Lee County down in the far southwest that they're closer to nine other state capitals than they are to Richmond, their own state capital. Um, you have the Eastern Shore that routinely just gets left off of maps because it's on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, and for some reason people forget that it's there. Um I'm I'm here to say. Don't do that. Don't put a map into the world that doesn't include the Eastern Shore if you're working in Virginia. But you know, there's so much history and beauty out there, and we all kind of stick to our own places and routines and all of that. And so my my word of wisdom, my piece of wisdom here would be to get out there and don't just explore your own communities, but you know, check out the ones that you maybe never even think about because it's hard to have empathy for places if you can't picture what they look like. And you know, I've loved getting to know folks from again every corner of this Commonwealth. And I would suggest to anyone listening that they do the same. Great advice. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Yeah, that's uh that's a really great way to uh sum up our conversation, Travis. And uh wow, I um I had not thought about our friends in Lee County with that fact that you just brought up.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

That's uh that's kind of wild. It is. Yeah, especially when you start thinking about policies and you know legislation and everything. Who who who are we impacting in them and how how closely are we actually interacting with them? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Well, as I said before, you're doing some great work in your role with Sokova. Um, I just from my experience of being uh connected to that group for several years now, I see it moving in a very positive direction. And I think you can take a lot of credit for that. So uh thanks for all you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

I I really appreciate that. Um again, I think maybe you give me too much credit, but as long as as long as we're moving in the right direction, I don't care who uh who gets who gets that credit.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Hey, teamwork, right? It takes us all.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah. Thanks for your time today, Travis.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Good to talk to you, Travis. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Thanks for listening to Voices of Hope. If you enjoyed today's conversation, we'd love for you to rate and review the podcast and help us spread the word. Voices of Hope is a production of New River Valley Community Services. To learn more or listen to past episodes, visit nrvcs.org slash podcast. And remember, hope grows when we share it. So keep the conversation going, and we'll talk to you next time on Voices of Hope.