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MSC Family Dinner Night with Brad Barton
Hosted by:
Marriott-Slaterville City
Please briefly describe your Communities Talk activity.
Our Communities Talk activity was a family dinner night with guest speaker Brad Barton, who is a world-record breaking track athlete. Mr. Barton became a prevention specialist and character education expert to share his personal experiences, and eye-opening statistics on underage drinking.
Throughout our event we played empowering videos, and shared statistics related to underage drinking with parents and attendees. The discussion was very informative and inspiring, and we gave parents tools to strike up conversations, and help their teens understand the risks of underage drinking. We shared the event on our Marriott-Slaterville City Office Facebook page.
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
According to the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey, underage drinking and substance misuse affects all school-aged youth in our community at some capacity. With this heightened awareness, we are determined to provide parents and teens with the tools and support they need to minimize underage drinking and substance misuse in our community.
What goal(s) did you hope to accomplish with your Communities Talk activity?
- Reduce prevalence of underage drinking and other substances in community
- Create an ongoing conversation about underage drinking and substance use prevention in the community
- Encourage community and local businesses to implement measures to prevent underage drinking (e.g., restricting or decreasing sales of alcohol at community events; conducting responsible beverage service training)
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Inexperience hosting Communities Talk activities
How did you overcome these challenges?
Our Fremont 5 Coalition was a huge help planning this event for the first time. While the implementation of our event was successful, we would have liked to see a large turnout. We will overcome this challenge in the years to come by allocating a longer timeline for promotion, and by including more community members to plan and promote the event.
What are your next steps?
- Host follow-up meetings or activities
- Create a public education campaign to raise awareness and/or change behaviors around underage drinking (i.e., create PSAs and other promotional materials)
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- Prevention videos, such as College Drinking: Prevention Perspectives
- StopAlcoholAbuse.gov website
- Communities Talk website
- Communities Talk planning guides
- Communities Talk Find an Activity Map
Who did you involve in your activity planning, and who did your activity impact?
We collaborated with three community members to plan and implement our event. In the future, we would like to include local youth to implement their ideas. Our activity was designed to give support and tools to community members to help strengthen families and their discussions about underage drinking and substance misuse prevention.
Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the planning or execution of your activities?
The COVID-19 pandemic did affect some of the planning and execution of our activities because we had to be mindful of hosting a safe event with people attending in person. We took precautions in line with CDC guidelines to ensure the community’s safety at our event.
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