South St. Paul Healthy Youth Community Coalition: May Presentations

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

May Presentations

In May 2009, the coalition will be hosting several South St. Paul Presentations. The coalition will present at the City Council meeting May 18th at 715pm, at the School Board Meeting on May 26th and we will also be hosting a presentation at both elementary schools on May 26th titled Healthy Choices Are A Big Deal!
Our State Representative, Karla Bigham will be the guest speaker on May 26th at Lincoln Center and Kaposia Elementary. Karla will be presenting on Healthy Choices for all 5th grade students. Karla is scheduled to present at 930am at Lincoln and at 1030am at Kaposia.
This presentation is wonderful opportunity to reach our fifth grade students with our underage alcohol prevention messages. The presentation will be followed up with teachers completing an alcohol prevention lesson with all 5th graders and an activity will be sent home with all 5th grade students to complete with their parents or guardians.
The coalition would like to thank Representative Bigham for her time and effort in this presentation and for her part in helping to prevent and reduce underage alcohol use in South St. Paul!

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Prevention in South St. Paul, What is the goal?

The role of prevention is to create healthy communities in which people have a quality of life:

*Healthy environments at work and in school
*Supportive communities and neighborhoods
*Connections with families and friends
*Drug and crime-free

How are we accomplishing prevention?

* By continuing an alcohol prevention curriculum in grades 6-12, curriculum focuses on prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use with young people.
* By implementing a Positive Community Norms Project
* Providing Latino Outreach
* Offering support to youth and parents in South St. Paul
* Providing environmental approaches, community-wide approaches to preventing underage alcohol, tobacco and other drug use

Funding Provided by the Minnesota Department of Human Services-Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division

Our Positive Community Norms Project...

Preventing Underage Drinking and Drug Use is our Coalition Goal...
So how do we prevent drug and alcohol abuse, specifically among young people? We start by trying to address the environment in which they live — by changing the so-called social norms (those beliefs which are held by community members about the frequency and amount of drug and alcohol use that takes place), addressing policy issues (the laws that govern underage drinking and drug use and its repercussions) and the accessibility of drugs and alcohol (where and how young people either buy or get drugs and alcohol).
...our Marketing Committee is developing a marketing campaign and media materials that will raise awareness among parents and youth in order to influence them to make healthy decisions. Our current campaign has the goal of reducing youth alcohol use and it is focused on 7th-12th graders in South St. Paul.