University/Schools
January 23, 2008
3:30 PM at UD Cooperative Extension Office
Attending:
Cindy Genau, Nancy Chase, Yvonne Nass, Lynda Hastings, George Meldrum,
Fred MacCormack, Keith Strouss, Jaime Wolhar, Kathy Ward, Karen Busby, Kristen
Blanchard, Linda Brasel
Staff Attending: Roberta Gealt, Mary Perno
Discussions:
Rabbi
David Kaplan and Rosemary Brooks will be joining us on February 27th to see if they would also like to join. The Coalition still needs more representation
from the religious sector, law enforcement, and the public schools. We definitely need a way to reach the public
school parents, which has been a challenge to
Mary will
print some
Town Hall Meetings: There will be 4 schools participating in this year’s Town
Hall Meeting. They are in direct contact
with the Federal Agency Sponsoring the events.
All of the participating schools—
Newsletters-Are up and running once
again. We already have 2 issues for
January. The first one is a general one
and the 2nd one addresses a specific topic—abuse of over-the-counter
drugs, which is higher in
1.
Driving Under the Influence
2.
Sexual
Behaviors & Substance Abuse
3.
Loss
of talent & celebrities due to addiction, put a face to the addiction
4.
Going
to rehab isn’t as easy as it looks in
5.
Statistics
from the Delaware Medical Examiners office.
6.
Heroin
Hurts and overdose newsletters
7.
Also put some
positive info in each newsletter, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
8.
How
to talk to your kids about tough subjects, sex, drugs & alcohol.
George
said that the Kids Health web site gets over 250,000 hits a day. It might be good if we could eventually have
a link on this Nemours page to the
Comments from the Board- The meeting ended by going around
the board with each member present making one brief statement about what was
important to them:
YMCA Resource Center-wants more collaborative
efforts. They are already working on
collaborations The town Hall Meetings should have YELL present.
Smart Drive-is now in their 3rd
year and has collaborated with
SODAT- SODAT started in 1971. In addition to providing treatment, they work
with students by giving them information, discussing decision options and the
consequences for those decisions in an age appropriate manner. They also provide information for parents.
Linda Brasel-her coalition, Building Bridges, which
is focused on
Cindy Genau-contracted through the Office of
Highway Safety for under-age drinking.
Kids need to have consequences for their decisions. The environment in
Liz Dubravcic-works with tobacco prevention. How do you get other parents to not accept
it? Maybe some education and have them
take responsibility.
Nancy Chase-Wellspring does student health
screenings. She is frustrated with the
Lynda Hastings-is retired and definitely not
looking for another job, but is interested to contribute a little here and
there. She thinks that more interactive education and culture-based changes can
make a difference in youth substance use rates.
We need to mobilize communities to keep them talking about agenda
items. More enforcement and cultural
changes are needed.
George Meldrum-believes that we need a change in
state laws. He has seen 3 major
changes-seat belts, drinking & driving and the smoking ban indoors. We can win people over one by one and change
the culture. Addiction is a disease and the
kid shouldn’t be kicked out of school because of it.
Fred MacCormack-the wellness centers are
changing. Kids need more than what the
wellness centers were intended for. They
want to talk and ask questions. Services
have to change; 80% of the kids seen in the wellness centers are there for
mental health issues, but the centers were not really intended for that.
The next
USA Executive Meeting will be on FEBRUARY 27TH AT 3:30 PM
Newark
Free Library