Program
continues efforts
to
stop underage drinkingin
county
By LAURA
HAGAN
hagan@owentonnewsherald.com
Formed in early 2006, TAPP looks to decrease
the use of alcohol in the community’s youth. By forming
task forces and educating youth on the dangers of drinking, one
of the goals of the project is to decrease alcohol use in youth
by 5 percent during the next three years.
Clark is the grant coordinator for TAPP and cited a number of
disturbing facts in her presentation that told all in attendance
how serious a problem underage drinking is in the county. Those
who attended the event ranged from concerned citizens to school
officials to elected officials.
A survey was done in 2006 among 652 high school and middle school
students to find out just how many teens in the county have been
affected by alcohol. The results of the survey gave TAPP an understanding
of how big of a problem there is.According to the survey, 55 percent
of the students surveyed in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 say they have
already tried alcohol. Even more shocking is the average age students
in the county begin drinking: 12.5.“I’m not surprised
that our children start drinking so early,” Clark said,
“considering the environment many of them have been immersed
in them. But it does bother me.”
Clark said statistics have shown that the earlier a child begins
to drink, the more likely it will be for them to have problems
later in life.TAPP has help from many other organizations in the
state and community: NorthKey and Bluegrass Regional Prevention
Centers, the Three Rivers Health District and the Owen County
School System, to name a few. The project itself came from a grant
given by the Division of Substance Abuse. An $11.5 million grant
was given to do prevention in the state in five different areas.According
to NorthKey Regional Prevention Center Director Amy Weber, the
five areas the prevention efforts would focus on were alcohol,
tobacco, prescription drugs, inhalants and methamphetamines. To
determine which counties got help, it was taken into account which
ones had the highest use of the drugs and the lowest amount of
resources available to prevent it.In late 2005 a community readiness
scan was taken and the counties were selected in January of 2006.One
reason Owen County was chosen is because the county is ranked
third highest in the state for teen violent deaths.Clark talked
about how teen alcohol use is a disease that was affecting the
children in the community and said the $1.5 million grant was
not the answer to the problem.“It won’t magically
cure our kids of what ails them,” she said. “We have
to impact the culture of this community and we have to do it one
person at a time.”This is the second event TAPP has done
in the county. The first one targeted families and used focus
groups to learn more about what parents and students think about
the problem of underage drinking. Clark discussed the importance
of parent involvement in her presentation because most of the
children who drink, get the alcohol from their own home.Clark
said she was pleased with how both events went. She said several
people have shown interest in getting involved with the project.“The
more people we have on our team, the wider the sphere of influence
we have with this project,” Clark said, “the more
of an impact we can make.”According to information listed
in the program – along with some of the survey’s results
– Owen County is ranked second highest in the state for
alcohol-related school violations. This is based on statistics
from the 2003-2004 school year, which is the case for the statewide
ranking, not just in Owen County.Superintendent Mark Cleveland
said that data could be skewed one way or the other if a couple
more years were included. “But that doesn’t take away
our need for this program,” he said.Cleveland attended the
presentation and said he thought it was wonderful. He said he
is glad the county has received this grant and likes that he has
the ability to express his concerns. While he said the current
policies may not be as “cut and dry” as some would
like it to be, he said he wants to look at developing more policies
to deal with underage drinking.“The best way to attack it
is to be proactive, not reactive,” Cleveland said.There
is also the issue of legal repercussions for the teens’
actions. According to information given at the presentation, only
59 percent of those who are charged for DUIs underage are found
guilty and face consequences.Owen County Sheriff Zemer Hammond
said anyway you can try and get young people on the right track
is a good thing to do. “Any program I can help with to get
young people on the right track, I’m 100 percent for,”
he said. He said he thinks 90 percent of the juveniles in this
county are “good kids” and it’s the ones that
don’t follow the rules that make it harder for the rest
of them.Concerned citizens were also in attendance Thursday night.
Marsha Derringer is the parent of a middle-schooler. She said
she had been unaware of how bad the problem was before the statistics
were presented. She said she thinks she will probably help in
some way with the work TAPP is planning to do.“I think it’s
a wonderful program,” Derringer said.She said her daughter
has been told in some of her classes that she shouldn’t
drink or smoke and that she and her husband have talked to their
daughter about going to parties.“(We tell her) that she
shouldn’t set her cup down, or let someone bring her a drink,”
Derringer said.
TAPP’s presentation included a short video called “This
Place” which gave a number of statistics about teenage drinking
throughout the United States and showed what some people are doing
to change those numbers.
In the video, it said that in the United States alone, alcohol
kills more children than all other illegal drugs combined. In
another part of the presentation, clips were shown from movies
that feature teenage drinking and have helped influence underage
drinking.TAPP plans to continue sharing the message highlighted
in the presentation and looks to get more and more people involved.
Clark said the Youth Leadership Organization from California is
being brought in to help develop a youth and adult group. They
are also looking at participating in a service project this summer.“We
also want to help sponsor a mentoring program that allows adults
to really become involved in the lives of children in this community,”
Clark said.Project Chairman Tony Watkins ended the presentation
with a plea to the community.“We (need to) quit accepting
that ‘that’s the way it’s been,’”
he said. “We need to change the way it is.”Both Watkins
and Clark encouraged everyone to get involved in some way such
as joining a task force. In her presentation, Clark asked that
anyone that didn’t want to help fix this problem in the
county get up and leave and Watkins echoed her in his closing
statements.“We have a challenge before us,” he said.
“We can lead the way and look back in five or ten years
and see that we’ve made a difference, or you can just get
up and walk out.”To become a part of the project, or just
learn more about it, contact Patti Clark at 484-8539 or at pclark@northkey.org.“Let’s
change the future of Owen County,” Watkins said.
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