Retreat leads to creation of public service announcements

Wood County Teen Institute members at the Sept. 24 retreat at Splash Bay in Maumee, OH

Teens often express their concern and worry regarding peers and drug abuse. Recent statistics tell us that one in five teens abuse prescription drugs.

On Saturday, Sept. 24, Wood County teens took action to make a difference. Sixty-three Wood County students attended the Teen Institute annual leadership retreat and learned about public service announcements (PSA) and then produced their own to enter into an Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services (ODADAS) PSA contest.

Schools that were represented at the retreat included Bowling Green, Eastwood, Elmwood, Lake, North Baltimore, Otsego, Penta, Perrysburg and Rossford. Students also were introduced to prevention strategies that will be useful for the 2011-2012 school year. 

The students left the retreat energized, creative, and compelled to be role models and agents of change.Seven PSAs were created during the retreat. The winning video from those seven can be seen online at http://youtu.be/PwjSaOWeH0o

Once all of the video have been submitted statewide, we all will have an opportunity to vote for our favorite video. We will post details on how to vote on our Twitter account at http://twitter.com/#!/WCESCPrevention

The winner will be announced and recognized at the 2011 Ohio Prevention and Education Conference (OPEC), which will be held Nov. 15-17 in Dublin, OH. If chosen, our group will work with the ODADAS Office of Communications to potentially have the winning PSA aired in their local market. It also will be featured on the ODADAS Web site, Facebook and YouTube pages.

Parent Project starts Sept. 20

Most of us in the field, working with high-risk youth know that parent involvement is the key to behavior change with difficult, behaviorally disordered adolescents. Yet, effectively educating parents in basic behavioral strategies is time consuming and repetitive. The Parent Project® is a parent training program designed for parents of strong-willed adolescents (those sometimes referred to as oppositional defiant, or conduct disorder). Since 2003, nearly 250 parents have attended Parent Project in Wood County and they report that there is important information for all  parents of teens.   

Topics include reducing family conflict and arguing, improving school performance and attendance, identifying and intervening with alcohol and other drug abuse, interceding with negative peer associations (including inappropriate dating relationships up to and including frank gang involvement) and helping parents to set effective applicable limits. Many parents attending Parent Project® have had difficulty identifying appropriate limits and enforcing consequences consistently. Parents who attend the Parent Project® are more likely to see their child’s attendance at school improve, and to require less school-based disciplinary resources as parents find powerful interventions at home with which to bring about change in their children. The motto of the Parent Project® is “Parents are the answer … when they have the tools they need.”

Presented in an educational format, parents are trained for a low fee of $20 for the accompanying 180-page workbook “A Parents’ Guide to Changing Destructive Adolescent Behavior.” There is no cost for the training itself. If the entire course is completed and the parent has attended all of the required sessions, the $20 fee will be refunded. Parents attend 18 hours of instruction for a cost of less than one session of private counseling.

The next session will be held Tuesday evenings from Sept. 20 through Nov. 22 at the Wood County Educational Service Center, 1867 N. Research Dr., Bowling Green. The first two classes will run from 6 to 9 p.m. The remainder of the classes run from at 6 to 8 p.m.

For more information or to register, contact Lorrie Lewandowski, Wood County Educational Service Center, 1867 N. Research Dr., Bowling Green, OH, 43402. Phone: 419-354-9010, ext. 113. E-mail: llewandowski@wcesc.org.

 

You also can find more information and register by visiting www.parentproject.com and click on “find a class in your area” in the top right-hand corner.

The local Parent Project program was featured in a radio news segment that was broadcast Jan. 27, 2010 on the Morning Show hosted by Dave Horger on WBGU 88.1 FM. Listen to the segment on BG Gizmo by clicking here.

Registration will be limited to the first 30 people responding.