This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Hartland Coalition Meets to Discuss Drug and Alcohol Use in Livingston County

New forum looking to give local parents a voice in teen prevention.

A meeting for the Hartland Coalition took place Thursday night at the where approximately 35 people met and listened to a presentation regarding drug and alcohol use in Livingston County.

Hartland Student Assistance Coordinator Nicole Schingeck spoke about upcoming programs geared towards local parents.

"We’re tying to get, based off of parent conversations, how we can as a school, support our parents who may need extra support at home," Schingeck said. "And just to bring awareness to our community so we can work together to keep our youth safe."

Find out what's happening in Hartlandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A free workshop, "Raising an Adolescent can be a Roller Coaster Ride" will take place this Wednesday, February 1, in room 212 at the . The presentation will begin at 6 p.m.

Kris Nelson, from Key Development Center, Inc., was also on hand to discuss ways parents could take a more active role in the prevention process by creating a steering committee for the Livingston Parent Mobilization Initiative.

Find out what's happening in Hartlandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“One thing we’ve learned is that strong parents are so important in all of this,” Nelson said. “It’s hard to get parents to come out to things, so we wanted to get parents involved in other ways.”

The goal of the Parent Mobilization Initiative is to engage and educate parents by sending messages regarding the disapproval of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use.

Presenters from the Livingston/Washtenaw Substance Abuse Coordinating Agency (SMART) gave an overview of the Safe and Sound Survey, which was conducted by SMART in the fall of 2009.

Results from the survey showed that 21.8 percent of parents believed that their child had drunk any type of alcoholic beverage in the last 12 months and that 30.8 percent thought it was while at a friend's house.

According to the same survey, only 6.8 percent of parents have talked to their child about the use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs and 10.8 percent feel that what they say would have little influence on whether their child uses drugs.

“The more messages that are out there, obviously the better chance a parent will see them and receive them,” Nelson said.

Current campaigns include the “Parents Who Host, Lose the Most” and the “Cool Parent” which came from table talks with local parents.

“Those of us in prevention have our ideas, we read the data but we really wanted to hear what parents in our community had to say,” Nelson said. “From that, an interesting thing that all parents said was that they felt in competition with the “cool” parents. … We decided to take that concept and flip it around.”

A variety of posters with a “new” definition of cool parent, one who refuses to provide alcohol or allow underage drinking, is Nelson’s latest brainstorm. 

“We really wanted to validate those parents,” she said.

With Prom and graduation seasons quickly approaching, Nelson is looking to form her planning committee soon to start taking action and plan new campaigns geared towards parents. Nelson is also hoping to draw representatives from each community.

“That parent can be the voice for parents of what the coalition can maybe do in their community,” Nelson said. “It’s kind of a two-way street we all work together to support the prevention efforts.”

Contacts, talents, ideas, and creativity are some of the things Nelson draws by creating these special committees and she says that when it affects their own communities, people will take ownership of the planning and ideas.

“They’re the ones deciding what the community needs and are more likely to get involved,” Nelson said. “Whenever there’s interest and the parent involvement, we can do so much more.”

  • The first meeting for the Parent Mobilization Initiative is Feb. 28. For more information regarding time and place, contact Kris Nelson at knelson@keysenters.org
  • The next meeting for the Hartland Coalition has yet to be determined. For more information contact akh@keycenters.org
  • For more information on the free parenting workshops at Hartland High School, contact Nicole Schingeck at NicoleSchingeck@hartlandschools.us
We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?