Local Program Aimed at Stopping Youth Drug Use

Drug and Alcohol use among young people is an important issue and two local groups have teamed up to help provide guidance for parents on how to address it and help keep their children away from harmful substances.

The Burlington Drug & Alcohol Task Force and the Woburn Memorial High School’s LEARN groups are co-sponsoring a parent workshop series set for March that aims at providing parents proactive prevention steps that will reduce substance abuse risks for their adolescents. 

The series is titled “APPLAUDD: A Prevention Program Learning About Underage Drinking & Drugs” and includes presentations designed to empower parents of students grades 5 through 12 with strategies meant to reduce the risk of underage drinking and drug abuse, according to a release of the events. The program will run on Tuesdays on March 8, 15, 22 and 29 at 7pm in the Marshall Simonds Middle School Auditorium, located at 114 Winn Street in Burlington. The event is open to anyone and all are welcome.

“Parents have been touted as the keys to preventing alcohol and other drug problems among youth, and research now shows that environmental and genetic risk factors can be trumped by parental engagement during the critical adolescent years,” the release quotes Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), as saying.

Alcohol and other drug research have shown that positive parental involvement is an important protective factor that decreases risk of drug abuse and underage drinking, explained Burlington Drug & Alcohol Task Force co-chair Marilyn G. Belmonte.

“Most parents do not feel that they have any power to influence their adolescents because teens build barriers to keep their parents at a distance,” Belmonte said. “This normal developmental stage during adolescence serves to discourage parents from being involved in their children’s lives.”                                               

Belmonte said the APPLAUDD series is meant to change that mentality.

“Parents can become empowered to be their children’s primary drug and alcohol abuse prevention educator,” she said.

Each APPLAUDD session will focus on different aspects of substance abuse; including heroin, cocaine, prescription drugs, marijuana, legal highs, inhalants, underage drinking, adolescent brain development, the new marijuana law, social host liability law, parent-teen communication skills and proven prevention parenting strategies.

For more information, please contact Belmonte at 781-229-2638 or Loren Baccari at 781-937-8210.

APPLAUDD won a national “Service to Science” award from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention in 2010 for being a unique and innovative prevention program. As part of this award, participants will be asked their opinions through pre-program and post-program surveys. Participation in these surveys is voluntary and not a requirement of attendance.