What is Youth
In Action (YIA)?
• A partnership between youth and adults
• Teams of high school students creating an environment
where underage drinking isn't a rite of passage
• Projects where young people work with law enforcement
officials to hold adults accountable
• An opportunity for leadership and fun at the same time
Instead of targeting high school students with a message, Youth
In Action looks at the whole environment that seems to condone
underage drinking. From the store clerk who doesn't check IDs,
to the police officer who might pour out the beer and send teens
home, to the adults who don't mind buying beer for a kid who
slips him an extra $10 -- YIA teams look for community solutions
instead of focusing their attention on their peers. Teams focus
on laws and policies that affect people's behavior because that's
the best place to make changes.
Look for the May 2003 release of the YIA Quarterly. Contact
programs@madd.org
with your name and mailing address and let us know that you
want to receive YIA's only national newsletter - the YIA Quarterly.
Did you know*?
• Before smoking was legally banned in public buildings,
all the awareness campaigns could not convince people to stop
smoking in public places. Laws had to be enacted before people
would change their behavior.
• Seat belt use is now legislated in some form in all
50 states, but it wasn't always the case. Awareness campaigns
and education tried their best, but it wasn't until policies
were changed that people were forced to change their behavior.
Youth In Action focuses on an environment that includes:
• Retail outlets and their policies and behavior regarding
alcohol sales
• Parents' attitudes about their kid's drinking
• Alcohol advertising - everywhere
• The laws and how they are enforced - or not
Youth In Action teams have very specific projects because research
says they work. YIA teams across the country work on:
• ALCOHOL PURCHASE SURVEYS
A young looking 21 year old attempts to purchase alcohol without
an ID. No actual purchase is made. It is merely a survey to
see if the clerk would have sold alcohol to a presumed minor
without ID.
• COMPLIANCE CHECKS
With the help of the police, young people act as underage buyers.
They are instructed to go through with the sale, whether the
clerks ask for ID or not. The police may cite or arrest the
store clerk.
• SHOULDER-TAP SURVEYS
With law enforcement present to ensure safety, a young person
(or group of young people) approach strangers outside an alcohol
retailer to see if they would willingly purchase alcohol for
them because they are too young to legally buy. Those that answer
yes receive instead of money, a card outlining the law and penalty
for furnishing alcohol to a minor. Those that refuse to purchase
alcohol are handed a card thanking them for serving their community
by refusing to provide alcohol to a minor.
• STICKER SHOCK
YIA teams meet with local alcohol package stores and ask them
to place warning stickers on the packaging of alcohol products
(primarily beer). The stickers are very visible and outline
the consequences of purchasing alcohol for people under the
age of 21. This project is designed to remind people that they
can be arrested for purchasing alcohol for minors.
• LAW ENFORCEMENT RECOGNITION PROGRAM
YIA teams publicly thank local law enforcement officials who
are working to prevent underage drinking. This can be done many
ways: a formal banquet, a media event, or even just by bringing
food to officers at the station or out on location where police
officers are working on the job. Either way, this is a unique
opportunity for teens to thank police officers for doing their
job.
• ROLL CALL BRIEFINGS
YIA teams set up meetings with their local police departments
to make presentations at shift change meetings. Two or three
YIA members go to the police station with an adult leader to
encourage police officers to enforce the Zero Tolerance Law.
Many YIA teams have printed cards or notepads to hand out outlining
the law and declaring their support for it.
HISTORY
In 1996, MADD announced its new partnership with concerned youth
to combat underage drinking and the NUMBER ONE drug problem
among young Americans - - alcohol. Lack of enforcement of the
21 minimum drinking age law, easy access to alcohol, irresponsible
alcohol marketing practices, lack of youth education and prevention
programs, and parents who condone underage drinking as a "rite
of passage" all contribute to alcohol being the number
one drug of choice among youth today. In response MADD has developed
a community based youth program called Youth In Action (YIA).
MADD launched the YIA program in 1996 with six pilot sites and
now work continues in approximately 40 sites across the country.
MADD has successfully become a powerful force in the fight to
prevent underage drinking; so much so that MADD officially added
"to prevent underage drinking" to it's mission statement.
YIA teams are everywhere....
• Dallas, Texas
• Juneau, Alaska
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Lynchburg, Virginia
• Hanover County, Virginia
• Farmville, Virginia
• Roanoke, Virginia
• Massachusetts (statewide)
• The Hawaiian Islands
• Central Florida
• Miami, Florida
• Tennessee (statewide)
• Lake Tahoe, California
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Las Cruces, New Mexico
• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Minnesota (statewide)
• Kentucky (several area)
• Rhode Island
• Kanawha County, West Virginia
• Connecticut (statewide)
FAKE ID Multimedia
Show
Summary:
Fake ID, a multimedia show for secondary students, focuses on
the strengths youth need to stand up to peer pressure and be
themselves despite what others are saying or doing. The show
also reminds students that personal growth and successes are
measured against their own individual journey through life to
become the person they want to be. By living on their own terms,
youth will find their "real me."
Full Description:
Adolescence is difficult, at best. Young people today face challenges
that cannot often be easily explained or understood. It is within
us all to want to make the right decisions but it is never as
simple as that. There is a pressure that seems to exist within
us that implies we must be something different, something better,
something more than we are - - whoever that is.
Being a teen is about determining who you are or how you define
yourself. When you are alone, are you the same person that your
friends see? Do you make good choices? Do you please your parents?
Do you feel good about yourself? If you could change yourself,
who would you be?
There is often pressure to use alcohol and other drugs to bolster
courage, fit in because it seems everyone is drinking, or just
alleviate boredom. When who we are just doesn't seem good enough,
there is a temptation to seek acceptance through alcohol use.
"Join the crowd," "everyone does it," and
"what's the big deal" are familiar but unfair. Not
only is this a dangerous line of thinking, it negates the importance
of being an individual. Often what the "in-crowd"
doesn't tell you is what can lie in the aftermath of underage
drinking.
Despite how things appear, young people have a great deal of
control over their lives. They make their own choices about
friendships and activities. They deal with the consequences,
both good and bad, of decisions they make on a daily basis.
They have the unique power to assess where they are, with whom
they spend time, and where they want to go with their lives.
It is at this point of introspection they can do something completely
drastic - - try something new.
Key Message Points:
• Encouraging youth activism
• Consequences of underage drinking and its relationship
to continued drug use
• Teens having control
• Definition of true friendship
• Making good decisions
• Perception versus reality (dispelling myths such as
"everyone is drinking")
For more about the shows, including pricing and scheduling information,
visit the School Assembly Web site at www.schoolassembly.org.
Alternatively, you can call MADD at 1-800-GET-MADD, or email
us at assembly@madd.org.
For information about MADD or sponsorship ideas contact your
local chapter or call MADD's national office at 1-800-GET-MADD.
MADD Youth
Power Camps
Every summer MADD conducts Youth Leadership Power Camps to help
young people learn the skills necessary to affect true environmental
changes in their communities. From addressing public policy
options, to joining efforts with law enforcement, to using the
media as a tool, youth will learn ways to change attitudes that
condone underage drinking and overlook drug use.
Throughout the camp, teams of alcohol and drug-free student
leaders will be trained about alcohol and drug abuse and how
to work within your communities to reduce these problems. Participants
will spend time with hundreds of other student leaders sharing
ideas, building friendships and absorbing valuable information.
Trained staffers guide camp participants through an exciting
journey where they learn to: share ideas and problems in small
family groups and team times; participate in fun games and events
with other students; and build teams through the informational,
skill-building and idea-sharing workshops offered each day.
Youth will gain leadership skills that will make them contributing
members of society.
Why should you attend Youth Power Camp?
• To learn how to become a leader in your school and community;
• To get the facts on the physical and psychological effects
of alcohol and drugs from experts in the field;
• To learn about successful school alcohol and drug prevention
programs and create a plan to help reduce alcohol and drug use
in your school or community;
• To learn how to affect change in your community's environment
through advancing laws and to learn how to use the media in
accomplishing your goals;
• To be inspired by dynamic motivational speakers;
AND MUCH MORE!
Why
21?
What's Magic About the Number 21?
Are you wondering what the deal is with the 21 minimum drinking
age law? Sure, it's a law but it doesn't always feel like it.
It's in all 50 states but do people pay attention to it? You
might question why the laws were written with 21 as the minimum
drinking age, what's so special about that age, and how the
law came to be. Here's a lowdown on the most relevant information.
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Some folks think 21 was pulled out of the air. But despite what
you may think, there are some pretty good reasons that age 21
was selected.
Back in the late 1960's and early 70's a number of states lowered
their drinking age from 21 to 18. In many of these states, research
documented a significant increase in highway deaths of the teens
affected by these laws. So, in the early 1980's a movement began
to raise the drinking age back to 21. After the law changed
back to 21, many of the states were monitored to check the difference
in highway fatalities. Researchers found that teenage deaths
in fatal car crashes dropped considerable - in some cases up
to 28% - when the laws were moved back to 21. Like it or not,
it is clear that more young people were killed on the highways
when the drinking age was 18.
Back in 1982 when the many of the states had minimum drinking
ages of 18, 55% of all fatal crashes involving youth drivers
involved alcohol. Since then, the alcohol-related traffic fatality
rate has been cut in half! Research estimates that from 1975-1997
more than 17,000 lives have been saved. Hard to argue with that!
A Strain in the Brain
According to the book Buzzed, the use of alcohol by young people
is especially frightening. We all hear about the dangers and
consequences of underage drinking, but most of us know very
little about how alcohol affects on the brains of young people.
Buzzed says we should look at what we do know about young brains
like the fact that they don't finish developing until a person
is around twenty years old. And one of the last regions to mature
is intimately involved with the ability to plan and make complex
judgments. Young brains are built to acquire new memories and
are "built to learn." Buzzed reports that, "It
is no accident that people are educated in our society during
their early years, when they have more capacity for memory and
learning. However, with this added memory capacity may come
additional risks associated with the use of alcohol." Apparently
on studies using animals, young brains are vulnerable to dangerous
effects of alcohol, especially on learning and memory function.
If this is true of people, then young people who drink may be
"powerfully impairing the brain functions on which they
rely so heavily for learning." So, in case there wasn't
enough pressure to perform at school, at your job, or just in
life, alcohol can prevent your use of your own brain.
So in answer to the question "Why?" the 21 minimum
age drinking laws were established to save your brain and your
life.
Sources:
• Kuhn, Cynthia, Swartzwelder, Scott, and Wilson, Wilkie.
Buzzed -- The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused
Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy.
• 1997 Youth Fatal Car Crash and Alcohol Facts. National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• Youth Impaired Driving Issues Compendium. Mothers Against
Drunk Driving.
|
