Mark your calendars! Prevention Works! VT is hosting the 5th annual Vermont Substance Abuse Prevention Day on Monday, October 26th from 10am – 3pm (registration from 9:30am – 10am) at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier, VT. Students and staff from groups all over the state are excited to participate in this wonderful opportunity to support substance abuse prevention and health and wellness initiatives in our state.
Do you or your organization work with youth? Bring them along – Prevention Day places a huge emphasis on empowering youth voice, and we need their ideas and input to make work in substance abuse prevention successful. The event will include a place for youth prevention groups, coalitions and health prevention focused organizations to display their work, as well as special activities and presentations for middle and high school students to encourage and embrace living “Above the Influence” of drugs and alcohol.
The keynote speaker, Officer Jermaine Galloway is not to be missed. Officer Galloway will focus on prevention on substance abuse in relation to the new and increasing trends in marijuana and alcohol. He will share with attendees challenges to be aware of and offer tools to be a part of the solution. Officer Galloway has been a driving force in this field. He recently won the 2015 Fraud Prevention and Detection – Law Enforcement Individual Award from AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators) and the 2010 National Mickey Sadoff Award by MADD for efforts in underage drinking prevention as well as the 2009 Law Enforcement Officer of the Year award.
Matthew Chinman, PhD, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, will lead the group in the visualizing a comprehensive statewide prevention plan for Vermont. Dr. Chinman has been on developing strategies to enhance the prevention capacity of community-based prevention practitioners. He co-developed the Getting To Outcomes (GTO) model and led the development and testing of several GTO-based guides that are aimed at assist¬ing local communities in planning, implementing, and evaluating prevention programs in the areas of substance abuse prevention, underage drinking prevention, and youth development. Dr. Chinman is also a health science specialist at the VISN 4 Men¬tal Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center, where his overall focus is on developing and testing various interventions to improve the recovery of individuals with serious mental illnesses.
Prevention Day is a great opportunity to network and collaborate with other prevention advocates around Vermont. The day will include time to meet people working and volunteering in the field of substance abuse prevention. To register for the event go to: www.vtpreventionday2015.eventbrite.com. If you have questions about the event please contact Lori Augustyniak at preventionworks@fairpoint.net or