The
Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition
has a
staff or adult mentor training for adults who work
with youth. The focus of the training is on how to
talk with youth about alcohol, tobacco and other drug
(ATOD) use and abuse. The training is one and a half
hours, totally interactive and absolutely free.
The training covers what it means to be a role model
for youth, the importance of ATOD training, an opportunity
to examine personal attitudes towards ATOD use before
helping, advising and building relationships with youth,
a “messages” exercise where staff examine
the mixed and confusing messages youth receive from
family, school, media friends and other adult role
models, an exercise on signs of use and statistics
from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey which help mentors
and staff understand the extent of the problem.
Finally
we discuss what our actual response might be (and what
the experts recommend) to a variety of scenarios where
youth confide in us and ask implicitly or explicitly
for
our help. One example of a question adult mentors may want to have thought
through an answer to in advance (before being put on the spot by a mentee)
is, Have you ever smoked pot?
This training has been used successfully with camp
staff, Big Brother Big Sister volunteers, Diversion
Board volunteers, and low income housing tenants’ associations
and staff.
For more
information....
phone: 802-257-2175
email:
bapc@sover.net
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