Launched, Lower’s Healthy Youth Coalition, Public Input Vital to Confront Drug Menace

VILLAS – In November of last year, Lower Township and Cape Assist announced that the municipality had won a $625,000 grant approved by the White House Office of Drug Control Policy. That money will fund Lower Township Healthy Youth Coalition over a five-year period.
This initiative consists of representatives of 12 different sectors of the community, including local government, faith-based groups, schools, business and civic groups.
Cape Assist will act as the “agent” for this coalition. Steve Selby of Cape Assist serves as coordinator of the coalition; he will support members and perform an administrative and advisory role based on his experience in prevention and treatment programs. However, the coalition will be the ultimate decision maker.
On Feb. 3, the inaugural meeting of the Lower Township Healthy Youth Coalition convened at Township Hall; approximately 35 parents and stakeholders attended.
Selby began the session by acknowledging the township for having the courage and insight to face up to the problem of substance abuse by young people, rather than denying a problem exists. “Thank you for coming, you are all here for the right reasons,” he began.
Selby was accompanied by Cape Assist Prevention Director Joseph Faldetta and Kim Mounce, who hosted the meeting.
The event received significant support from local and state elected officials including Sen. Jeff Van Drew, Assemblymen Robert Andrzejczak, and R. Bruce Land (all D-1st).
Locally, Mayor Michael Beck, Deputy Mayor Norris Clark, and Councilmen Thomas Conrad and Erik Simonsen participated in discussions.
Selby led the meeting through a series of slides designed to elicit information from residents about their opinions and perspectives on various issues related to abuse of alcohol and drugs by township youth. Selby stressed the need to receive regular feedback from the community about the problem as they perceive it since that is key to designing programs that can be effective against youth substance abuse.
He then began a presentation unlike most that consist of dozens of slides designed to deliver a “one way” message to an audience.
Selby’s approach was to educate through asking questions rather than providing “answers”, using the Socratic method of instruction. 
Presenters distributed small “clickers” that recorded electronic answers to questions posed, not to record the “right answers” but to measure the opinions and insights of attendees on various topics.
Those insights and baseline opinions will be used to devise future programs; community participation and input is clearly a key ingredient of their methodology. Some examples of this questioning session include the following:
“Is alcohol readily accessible to youth in your community?”
Attendees overwhelmingly agreed that both alcohol and non-prescribed prescription drugs were readily available to youth in Lower Township; 53 percent felt that alcohol was being furnished most often by friends and family, while 62 percent felt that prescription drugs were readily available in the home medicine cabinet as well as friends. 
After several questions and short discussions, Selby brainstormed some issues to get deeper into the community’s collective mindset and attitudes about the youth substance abuse problem.
Discussion ventured into substance abuse causation and the role of government, social agencies, community, churches and family in addressing and reducing the problem.
Several attendees saw family as the foundation to solving any community problem. They lamented that parents were not paying attention to their children due to work demands or just complacency.
Others felt that some families were dysfunctional, and in some cases were actually taking an active role in continuing the pattern of substance abuse by their children.
Boredom on the part of children was also mentioned as a key factor.
Some offered that outside school activities must be relevant to what young people want to do, and that often times those activities were not available to many youths because of a lack of transportation, especially in families where parents were either working long hours, or were unwilling to take an active role in getting their children to and from those activities.
Selby closed by reminding everyone that the coalition will use data collected at the meeting and future meetings to guide future collective decision making. 
His goal is “to implement environmental change” in Lower Township by learning more about individual issues in the municipality and act accordingly. He urged everyone to “get the word out” about the coalition so more parents and stakeholders will participate.
Selby sees this first year of existence as an important time to generate support, increase attendance at meetings, and establish the coalition as a positive force in the community. 
Interested parents and others may contact Selby at Cape Assist, Steve@CapeAssist.org.
To contact Jim McCarty, email jmccarty@cmcherald.com.