Voices of Prevention

Even though I’m the Chair of the West Hartford Substance Abuse Prevention Commission, I am not an expert in the prevention field. I am a parent who wants to help other parents keep their kids free from substance abuse. I want to make West Hartford a community that recognizes that prevention is the best – and cheapest – way to protect our youth from making dangerous decisions.  My role on the commission is to coordinate the efforts of the numerous organizations on our team and develop synergies between them.  Among many other things, we help develop events in our schools that promote prevention, organize prescription drug “Take-Back” days for residents to dispose of unused medications and present Town Hall Meetings to discuss ways that parents can help their children remain safe from substance abuse. 

In 1989, the Town of West Hartford established the Substance Abuse Prevention Commission for the purpose of advising the Town Council on ways of addressing substance abuse in the community.  Every year since then, the Commission has met monthly throughout the school year to discuss ways of preventing substance abuse and to coordinate the efforts of the numerous agencies in town that fight valiantly to keep our population – especially our youth – from taking the wrong path when it comes to substance use.  The members of the Commission include school administrators, social workers, psychiatric professionals, researchers, parents, business people, law enforcement and local organizations working in the prevention field.  While many of our members are also in the treatment field, our focus is on prevention.  Educational programs, parent-to-parent organizing, surveys and public awareness programs are our primary tools.  This blog – which was created in response to survey feedback – is just one more tool in our effort to educate and engage the West Hartford community.

This blog will be a place for professionals and laypeople from our community to discuss substance abuse prevention issues.  They may be social workers that work with West Hartford youth or parents from Community Of Concern – the High & Middle School parent organization that holds evening events to discuss ways to keep our children safe.  We’ll have students writing about the peer pressures they deal with when trying to make the right decisions and those that have been “there and back”.   Expect to see columns written by the panelists participating in this year’s Town Hall Meeting and maybe some articles by some of our college students that have left West Hartford and how their experiences in town have helped them (or not) in their later years.

Follow this blog to keep up on this and other issues related to substance abuse prevention.  We’ll be posting new articles as they’re written and look forward to keeping you, our target audience of West Hartford, informed and educated.   Stay tuned!

OUR NEXT EVENT: This year’s annual Town Hall Meeting “Choices & Consequences” will be on Monday, April 8th, 2013 at the West Hartford Town Hall Auditorium.  This free event is for teens and adults and will focus on prescription drug misuse and underage drinking.  This year’s event includes a mini-expo of local resources, two research-based videos produced by Hall & Conard students about peer pressure related to substance abuse and a panel discussion with experts and students.  We’ll also have free food, a raffle with prizes for teens, music by both High School a Capella groups and by the winner of The Underground’s Battle of the Bands.  More info on the event and the West Hartford Substance Abuse Prevention Commission is available here.