Prevention and Recovery Services of Topeka
Topeka, Kansas
Reality Tours Help Teens Avoid Drugs
Introduction
Prevention and Recovery Services (PARS), in Topeka, Kansas, has
undergone several name changes since it was founded in 1965 as the
city’s affiliate of the National Council on Alcoholism. Its focus,
however, has remained the same: addressing alcohol prevention,
treatment, and recovery support. For its 2014 Town Hall Meetings,
PARS delivered its underage drinking prevention messages through Reality Tour,
a national parent-and-child program listed in the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services’ (SAMHSA) National Registry of Evidence-based
Programs and Practices and available from Candle, Inc.,
a nonprofit organization. Reality Tour is designed to “increase
children’s negative attitudes toward alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and
other illicit drugs, as well as their perceived risk of harm from use
of these substances.”
Event Description
For two evenings, March 30–31, 2014, PARS hosted Reality Tour
presentations at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library
(TSCPL). Reality Tour used several trained volunteers, including
teens, actors, law enforcement personnel, and local leaders, to
dramatize negative outcomes of underage drinking and other substance
abuse, and to use interactive teaching methods with small audiences to
foster strong child-parent interactions. Participants, some as young
as age 10, saw realistic depictions of negative legal and health
outcomes of underage drinking. A tour director led participants from
room to room, where scenes of an arrest, prison experience, dramatic
emergency room overdose scene, and funeral were narrated by teens,
along with reminders to the audience: “I’m just like you.”
Strategies for making healthy decisions and finding and using local
resources for support were presented after the tour, and teen
participants received a personalized souvenir—a digitally morphed
photograph of how their face might look if they engaged in drinking or
drug use. Attendees also learned that 43 percent of Shawnee County
teens report alcohol use and experience a variety of serious problems,
which emphasized the need for parents to be involved in prevention and
for teens to avoid alcohol use. A March 16, 2014 article about the Town Hall Meetings (which included an embedded video invitation) in The Topeka Capital-Journal helped PARS attract capacity attendance.
Measures of Success
A total of 156 pre-registered youth and adults participated in the
two Town Hall Meetings, the maximum number PARS sought to bring to the
events. The events were announced and reported by several area media
outlets. For example, footage of the Reality Tour program was included
in a March 31, 2014, report on television station WIBW. Coverage
on the widely viewed local television “13 News at Ten” program reached
a large audience with key prevention messages and drew attention to
PARS as an important community resource for combatting underage
drinking and other substance abuse. TSCPL posted photos of the Town Hall Meetings on Flickr and included thumbnails and a link to the images in its article
describing the events. According to PARS’ Safe Streets program’s
grant coordinator and community outreach specialist Irene Caballero, a
significant outcome has been cementing relationships with TSCPL as a
new partner with an exciting potential for helping PARS communicate with
adults and youth in the community.
Next Steps
Irene Caballero noted that the March 2014 Town Hall Meetings
increased local support for PARS’ plan to form a new task force
addressing underage drinking and youth substance abuse. PARS also
plans to increase its public education about risk and protective
factors and their impact on teen alcohol and marijuana use in response
to 2014 Town Hall Meeting feedback. Success of the 2014 Town Hall
Meeting collaboration with TSCPL has led to another presentation of
Reality Tour on March 8, 2015, at two different times, with the library
offering use of its facilities again.
Contact:
Irene Caballero
icaballero@safestreets.org
(785) 266–4606
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