youth/teen programs & services

Prevention Network offers programs for youth at many different age levels. See an overview of our programs here, or scroll down to browse.

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teen institute

Teen Institute is a comprehensive program designed to train, mobilize, and empower youth to prevent the illegal use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, and self-destructive behaviors in themselves and their peers. Teen Institute emphasizes peer leadership and positive life skills development.

The Teen Institute framework includes the following elements:

An All-Encompassing Focus on Healthy Beliefs and Clear Standards

General Sessions and workshops provide motivational messages about healthy lifestyle choices, practicing restraint, making a difference in one’s community and having a positive vision for the future.

Programs focus on acceptance, diversity, and feeling comfortable with oneself.

Workshops are conducted to educate youth about current health, wellness and safety issues pertinent to them and their peers, with a strong emphasis on alcohol, tobacco and other drug use and violence.

Participants learn peer-focused prevention, safety, and wellness strategies that they can implement when they return home.

Staff members receive training that emphasizes strategies for positive youth development and empowerment.

Opportunities for Pro-Social Bonding, Attachment and Commitment

TI is designed to provide team-building activities to increase group cohesion, bonding and commitment.

TI incorporates small discussion groups that meet regularly to get to know one another and reflect on recent events. These groups incorporate bonding activities and encourage youth participants to step outside their comfort zones in making new friends.

Life Skills Training for Healthy Lifestyle Choices

Incorporate life skills and peer leadership training.

Outcomes are evaluated through pre/post tests and observation.

Opportunities to apply life skills are provided during Teen Institute programs, and youth are encouraged to actively apply them after the program is over.

TI uses peer leaders (youth staff) to co-conduct life skills training.

Meaningful Opportunities for Active Participation

TI involves participants in an action planning process with the specific intent that plans of action developed during the program will act as catalysts for continued involvement in pro-social, peer leadership activities in one’s school and/or community.

Teen Institute has opportunities for youth who have participated in the program to serve as youth staff in subsequent years. Youth are involved in planning and evaluating programs, developing and implementing workshops and general sessions, facilitating small discussion groups and team meetings, and providing staff support at other functions throughout the year.

Teen Institute encourages community service and involvement in one’s school and community.

Recognition and Reinforcement for Learning and Applying Life Skills

Teen Institute provides opportunities for recognition and reinforcement for learning and applying life skills that must include at least one of the following:

Recognition of youth participants who demonstrate interest and leadership skills by selecting them to serve as youth staff in subsequent programs.

Provision of awards based on actions taken by participants and/or teams as a result of their Teen Institute experiences.

Opportunities for participation to attend national conferences such as the National Association of Teen Institutes (NATI) annual conference.

Teen Institute has been in existence in Onondaga County since 1986 and nationally since 1965.

For more information on the Teen Institute Peer Leadership Program, contact Nicole Smith at 315.471.1359.

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reality check youth action project

Reality Check, a youth movement developed by the New York State Department of Health Tobacco Control Program in 2000, is committed to exposing the manipulative and deceptive marketing practices of the tobacco industry. It is funded by the New York State Department of Health Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Program.

Reality Check provides youth with skills and strategies to alert their peers, community members and community leaders to recognize that:

• Tobacco is the number one preventable cause of death and disease in the world;

• Tobacco companies continue to target teens and young adults as “replacement smokers;” and

• We all need to take action to get tobacco out of our communities.

Reality Check is not anti-smoker; it is anti-smoking, anti-tobacco use and anti-tobacco industry. It is made up of teens from every county in New York State who want to tell the tobacco industry they can no longer target teens and young adults without any resistance.

Our two main goals are to:

• Expose the marketing practices of the tobacco industry; and

• De-glamorize and de-normalize tobacco use.

Current projects include working with local festivals, carnivals and fairs to implement a policy prohibiting tobacco companies from sponsoring or being vendors at these family events. By sponsoring such events, the tobacco industry is able to soften its image while promoting a deadly and addictive product.

The Smoke-Free Movies Project is still going strong in its 3rd year. Reality Check is trying to move the Motion Picture Association of America to assign an “R” rating to movies depicting tobacco use. Dartmouth University has proven that young people, seeing their favorite actors and actresses smoking on screen, account for up to 52% of the young people trying tobacco for the first time. For more information, in Onondaga County, contact Beth Toomey at 315.471.1359. In Cayuga County, contact Karen Darling at 315.252.4212.

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the SQUAD - students questioning underage drinking

The SQUAD, created in response to the extreme pressures in high school and middle school to drink alcohol and take drugs, has brought together over 25 high school students throughout Onondaga County to take charge of spreading the real news about drinking in schools and in the community. Three programs have been created and are led by SQUAD members.

DYK Your Story? – “Do You Know Your Story?” is a program for 7th and 8th grade students where SQUAD members lead a 45-minute presentation to group assemblies or individual health classes. The theme of the presentation is to help young people think about what they want their lives (“their story”) to look like now and in the future. The program uses exercises, role-playing, questions and answers, and multi-media to get across this powerful message – peer to peer.

Media Mentors – This team of SQUAD members focuses on working with the media in both radio and television. They have created PSAs that are currently being broadcast on several radio stations. They have appeared on several television shows and spoken powerfully about why they don’t drink and why other young people shouldn’t drink. The SQUAD is working with the Media Unit to produce television PSAs, influence the media, and organize a major theatrical event at the New York State Fair in August 2006. Listen to a SQUAD PDA online.

Watch Dogs – Working with adults, SQUAD members keep an eye on retail businesses that sell alcohol logo apparel in the young men’s and women’s departments of their stores. Working with national organization like the Marin Institute and The Center on Alcohol Marketing (CAMY), the SQUAD is taking on big alcohol.

If you are interested in joining the SQUAD and want to help young people make good choices, contact Philip Rose at 315.471.1359.

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project ALERT

Project ALERT is a two-year drug prevention curriculum for middle school students, 11 to 14 years old, focusing on the substances that adolescents are most likely to use: alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and inhalants. It seeks to motivate adolescents against drug use, teach adolescents the skills and strategies needed to resist pro-drug pressures, and establish non-drug-using norms.

The program has been developed for high and low-risk adolescents from a variety of social economic backgrounds.

The focus is primarily on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana; it also includes materials on inhalants, cocaine, and other illegal drugs.

The key program approaches include an in-school curriculum which consists of weekly lessons that involve guided classroom discussions and small group activities; stimulation of peer interaction and challenging student beliefs and perceptions; and intensive role-playing activities to help students learn resistance skills.

Parents are involved through homework assignments that include them in the learning process by facilitating parent-child discussions of drugs and how to resist using them.

Project ALERT helps adolescents:

• Understand the consequences of using drugs

• Develop reasons not to use

• Understand the benefits of being drug-free

• Recognize that most people do not use drugs

• Identify and counter pro-drug pressures

• Resist advertising appeals

• Support others in their decisions not to use

• Learn how to quit

• Communicate with parents

• Recognize alternatives to substance use

For more information about Project ALERT, call us at 315.471.1359.

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great kids are great role models

Great Kids are Great Role Models is a five-week drug and alcohol education program offered at city and county parks and recreation summer programs. Youth, ages 8-12, engage in fun and effective hands-on learning activities to enhance life skills, teach family values, and to reduce the likelihood they will smoke, drink or use drugs. The program teaches the knowledge and skills necessary to increase their self esteem, build character, communicate effectively, make new friends, and resist peer pressure to use drugs.

In addition to the educational piece, youth in the Great Kids are Great Role Models program create designs with a healthy choice message. All entries are judged on the basis of the prevention message, as well as art work. The finalists’ designs are featured on a calendar that is distributed throughout the community.

For more information about the Great Kids are Great Role Models program, contact us at 315.471.1359.

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eckerd drug quiz show

The Eckerd Drug Quiz Show strives to heighten school/home/community substance abuse awareness by providing middle-school students with the opportunity to have fun, while gaining the knowledge, skills, and self-confidence needed to make safe, healthy, real-life choices regarding the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs.

Students in 5th through 8th grade study materials provided and become engrossed in an exciting “game show” format. They become conversant with the benefits and risks of substances as diverse a prescription pills, steroids, chewing tobacco, and crack. They learn the health benefits of laughter and techniques of handling stress positively.

They become familiar with important life skills such as: decision-making, conflict resolution, ways of saying “no”, decreasing personal risk factors, increasing resiliency, and dealing with feelings such as anger and grief.

Prevention Network coordinates the Onondaga County Regional Finals each year. Students from approximately thirteen schools compete, with the top two teams advancing to the New York State finals.

For more information about the Eckerd Drug Quiz Show, contact us at 315.471.1359.

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educational presentations

Alcohol/Substance Abuse presentations are classroom oriented on a variety of issues related to alcohol and other drugs. The presentations are designed for a wide range of audiences, school-aged to adult, and can be arranged as single or multiple sessions. A variety of age-appropriate interactive activities support the sessions.

Frequent topics include:

• Alcohol 101

• Ecstasy and Designer Drugs

• Stress Management

• The Cat Who Drank Too Much (alcohol and addiction issues for elementary students)

• Body Piercing/Body Art Addiction

• Self-Mutilation

• Marijuana

• Healthy Choices

• Drugs and the Brain

• Drinking and Driving

• Inhalant Use

Presentations can cover additional topics and can be tailored to fit your organization’s needs. If you would like a staff member to do a presentation for your organization, you can contact us at 315.471.1359.

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