# Presentation: 514710

## Environmental Prevention:Strategies for Engaging Youth

- Environmental Prevention:Strategies for Engaging Youth

- Maureen Sedonaen, President
- Youth Leadership Institute

## Foundations for Environmental Prevention

- Foundations for Environmental Prevention

## Foundations for Environmental Prevention

- Understanding the Public Health Model
- What is Environmental Prevention?
- Youth-led Environmental Prevention
- Strategies in Environmental Prevention

## Understanding the Public Health Model

## A Public Health Approach

**Individual Prevention:** focuses on changing the host
**Environmental Prevention:** focuses on changing the agent and environment

- Host

- Agent

- Environment

**Public Health Triangle**

## What is Environmental Prevention?

## What is Environmental Prevention?

**Environmental Prevention** is the promotion of health and safety by changing the policies, settings and community conditions that contribute to high-risk, unhealthy behaviors.
**Some examples include:**
- Changing how alcohol/tobacco is sold and advertised
- When and where alcohol/tobacco is available

## Why Focus on Changing the Environment?

- Why Focus on Changing the Environment?

## Why Focus on Changing the Environment?

- Magnitude of the problem
- Turnover in risk groups
- Individual-oriented efforts alone have little success

## Why Focus on Changing the Environment?

- An Environmental Prevention Approach focuses on:
- Norms
- Media Messages
- Policies
- Accessibility

## Youth-Led Environmental Prevention Practices

- Youth-Led Environmental Prevention Practices

## History of Youth-led EP Practices 

- Research demonstrating youth-integration is NEW
- Advocacy as an intervention
- Applied skill and knowledge
- Community leadership and empowerment
- Intergenerational partnerships
- Integrate youth development and service needs with youth organizing

## Environmental Prevention in Action

## Examples of EP in Action! 

**Community Norms****...**
- 	Community norms, the unwritten rules of acceptable behavior in a given setting, have the power to encourage or discourage ATOD use and abuse.
**Examples of Environmental Strategies:**
- Promote public events (fairs, concerts, etc.) that are alcohol free or that follow rigorous guidelines for the sale of alcoholic beverages.
- Expose and attack predatory alcohol and tobacco marketing practices.

## Examples of EP in Action! 

**Media ****Messages...**
- 	Images in the entertainment and news media glamorize ATOD use, especially among youth, and tend to solely blame individual users for problems. Additionally, alcohol and tobacco advertising is widespread in most communities.
**Examples of Environmental Strategies:**
- Advocate for a film studio to cease alcohol and tobacco product placements in PG-13 movies.
- Conduct media outreach to increase news coverage of community changes that have reduced problems resulting from high-risk drinking.

## Examples of EP in Action! 

**Accessibility****...**
- 	Easy availability of alcohol and tobacco is linked to an increased concentration of problems such as drinking and driving, crime, safety problems, and chronic disease in communities.
**Examples of Environmental Strategies:**
- Monitor alcohol retailers’ compliance with purchase laws
- Cut off beer sales at sporting events at least one hour before the game ends
- Provide attractive non-alcoholic beverages whenever alcohol is served.

## Examples of EP in Action! 

**Policies and Regulations****...**
- 	Policies and regulations, whether of the public sector (states, counties, cities, school districts) or private sector (businesses, social clubs), shape how ATOD is sold, promoted and consumed.
**Examples of Environmental Strategies:**
- Establish local zoning ordinances that restrict the number of alcohol, tobacco and head shop outlets in a neighborhood or city
- Increase state excise tax on alcohol and tobacco products
- Drinking Age laws

## Environmental Prevention in Action

- 	Environmental Prevention is not an attempt to bring back Prohibition by completely outlawing alcohol and tobacco...

## Environmental Prevention in Action

- 	...Rather, this approach attempts to put a balance back in our public policies that have traditionally favored--and continue to favor--the alcohol and tobacco industries over the health and welfare of our communities, particularly young people.
- -Bonnie Benard, Prevention Resource Center

## Environmental Prevention is an Approach

- 	Environmental Prevention is an ***approach*** with a series of strategies that are ***grounded in the community***...

## Environmental Prevention is an Approach

- 	**...****that Utilizes:**
- Data
- Community Organizing
- Action
- Policies

## Environmental Accountability

**Policy**

**Community**

- Enforcement

**Education**

## Grounded in the Community

**Owners of the Source**

***Grounded in the Community***

**Decision-makers**
**/Influencers**

**Residents**
**/Neighbors**

- Community Stakeholders

## Promoting Environmental Prevention to Young People

- Promoting Environmental Prevention to Young People

## Promoting EP to Young People

- Practices in Promoting Environmental Prevention to Youth: Lessons from the Field
- Ages and Stages of Youth Development
- Effective Age-Appropriate Concepts,  Strategies, and Exercises

## Practices in Promoting EP

- Inspire!
- Identify Leadership and Skill Development
- Meet Youth and Community Leaders
- Accessible Meeting Times and Places
- Clarify and Support Responsibility and Opportunity

## Practices in Promoting EP

- Address Transportation Needs
- Make it Fun and Interesting
- Guarantee Adult Buy-in
- Empower Youth-led Assessment
- Recognition Opportunities

## Engaging Young People in Environmental Prevention Strategies

- Engaging Young People in Environmental Prevention Strategies

## Effective Engagement of Young People

- Best Practices in Engaging Youth in Environmental Prevention: Lessons from the Field
- Using Age-Appropriate Strategies
- Understanding the Components of Environmental Prevention Efforts
- Using a Continuum of Youth Engagement in EP Efforts
- Sample Exercises & Tools to Use

## Best Practices in Engaging Youth

- Provide Skill- and Capacity-Building Opportunities
- Conduct a Community Mapping and Assessment Project
- Have a Defined, Realistic Issue and Timeline
- Engage in Facilitation and Relationship Bldg.
- Develop a Strategy and Action Plan
- Make it FUN!

## Practices in Engaging Youth in EP

- Engage Parents, Families, and Community Members
- Make it Fun and Interesting
- Utilize Media Advocacy Strategies
- Reflect and Recognize
- Tell Your Story!

## Components of EP Efforts

- Capacity-building
- Assessment
- Project Implementation
- Evaluation

## Questions and Next Steps

**Promoting**
- Thoughts/Ideas
- Questions
- To Do
**Engaging**
- Thoughts/Ideas
- Questions
- To Do

##  For more information...

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