Three SMART coalition members (Rachel, Melissa, and Lance) attended the THE 3rd ANNUALALCOHOL & SUBSTANCE ABUSE CONFERENCE in Park City, July 29th and 30st. SMART members approve the funding of these trips with the stipulation that each attendee write a short report that focused on at least the following:
1. A short list of valuable information learned at the conference
2. Identify 1 to 3 ideas, from the list, that you'd like to help implement into coalition activities
Enjoy the reports.
SMART Management Team
4 comments:
RACHEL MOULTON'S REPORT:
I had the opportunity to attend the Northwest Alcohol Conference this past weekend and took away some great new ideas and reminders on working in substance abuse prevention.
Here are three things that I learned:
1) The conference started out motivating attendees that intention matters. We need to have a root cause that drives us. It really makes a difference. To illustrate this point, the MC gave an example of a study done on home cooking. He said it was scientifically proven that home cooked foods with the intention of love and care behind their creation, simply taste better then restaurant foods. It is the intention that makes the difference. So it is with substance abuse prevention. We will get better results with greater commitment and intentions.
2) A convicted felon who killed a girl in a drinking a driving accident talked to us as well. He really emphasized the need for police officers to take greater action when breaking up an underage drinking party (contact parents, give out consumption tickets, etc). Even though it takes a lot of time for a police officer, getting in trouble once may help prevent bigger future consequences.
3) I learned a TON about drug recognition. SRH (stoners reeking havoc) is a clothing brand drug dealers may wear to identify with other illicit drug users. Salvia is a spice that you can get high off of... we watched a video of someone high on it and they were really messed up. I also learned that www.erowid.org (I think it is put together by people using illicit drugs....) is a site to find out about the latest drug trends.
Three ideas that I want to implement into the coalition are:
1) MADD is coming out with a 10 lesson DVD on "Proven Skills to Promote Happy Families, Healthy Brains, and Alcohol & Drug Free Kids." I would like our alcohol task force to look into distributing these DVDs to parents when they come out next Spring.
2) I also really want to get something started in our PR/ Community Outreach workgroup regarding media literacy. I went to a great class on how to dissect advertisements and the importance of teaching youth how to do so as well. We talked about how youth often act on feeling more than reason as their brain is developing. Advertising firms know this and pry on youth emotions while they are vulnerable. We need to do our part to protect youth by teaching them better media literacy.
3) I would like to strengthen our collaboration with Parents Empowered. They gave a great presentation and have TONS of resources. We really could do a lot by combining our efforts.
It was a great conference! Come talk to me if you want to learn more!
Rachel Moulton
MELISSA BATES REPORT:
Northwest Alcohol Conference
This conference was great. Law enforcement was heavily involved, and it was interesting to see their perspective when it comes to substance abuse.
Information I learned:
I learned more about the importance of implementing environmental strategies to combat substance abuse. Impacting economic, social, and political conditions are so much more effective than individual strategies.
What I would like to help implement into coalition activities:
Promote the norm that it is NOT okay to misuse/abuse prescription drugs. I know we have a lot of work ahead of us in this area, as shown from our collected data. But I believe that as we implement strategies to change this norm, we will be effective in decreasing prescription drug abuse.
LANCE MADIGAN'S REPORT:
The Northwest Alcohol Conference last week was very “law enforcement” focused (lots of cops, talking about recognizing impaired individuals, actually writing tickets and not just giving warnings, traffic fatality numbers, etc), but there was still a lot of good take home messages for us as well.
My main topic of interest in the conference was combating underage drinking. Economics can play a huge role in alcohol consumption – specifically with underage drinkers. Other important factors for include social acceptance, availability, and the necessity of a multi-jurisdictional approach to the issue. (nothing new there, right?). Also learned (“re-learned”?) of some great networking/resource tools for us to use, including Parents Empowered (http://parentsempowered.org/), MADD, and www.nhtsa.gov (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration).
My goals from the event will be to reach out and try to bring these other resources/partners together as well with SMART. As mentioned, one of the most effective techniques is to involve EVERYONE: government, media, parents, law enforcement, civic and community groups, etc. My area of expertise lends me to specifically working on communication messages, but I also work with a lot of different groups on a wide variety of topics, and will focus on building collaboration and partnerships.
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