“Working With Today’s Youth For A Better Adult
Tomorrow.”
The YPP program is designed to identify and assist students
who may be experiencing emotional, physical, social, academic, or any other problem which may interfere with their performance
and functioning in the school setting.
GOALS
§ To provide education, screening, referral and follow
up services.
§ To provide each campus with a group of trained personnel who can
deal effectively and confidentially with youth concerns.
§ To involve the entire school staff on the campus in a systematic
process intended to identify and help students “at risk”, based on attendance, performance and behavior.
§ To ultimately reduce the school dropout rate, problems due to alcohol/drug
use, truancy, disciplinary/behavior problems, and incidences of illegal behavior.
Youth Prevention Specialists
are on campus during the school year in Tyler, Whitehouse, Winona, Chapel Hill, Lindale and Hawkins Independent School Districts.
The Youth Prevention Speciialist, assigned to the school district, will provide alcohol and drug prevention services as need
at the elementary, middle and high school levels. At the elementary level, the
Youth Prevention Specialist will provide curriculum that helps students learn to identify feels, build self esteem and character
education. The middle school and high school level programs offer early identification
and screening services for those students who are involved with alcohol or drugs or who may
be experiencing problems from a home-life that is involved with alcohol and drugs. Support services are offered to
each student to meet their specific needs. Alcohol and drug identification training
is offered during staff development for teachers and school personnel to aid in the referral process. Additionally, parent training can be offered during the year to assist parents in preventing alcohol and
drug use. In addition to the problem identifcation and referral services the
Youth Prevention Specialists will offer the LifeSkills Training to students in 3-8th grades. LifeSkills Training is a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration(SAMHSA) model program that is scientifically proven to
reduce substance use and abuse among youth. LifeSkills Training seeks to influence
the major social and psychological factors that promote the initiation and early use of substances. Youth Prevention
Specialists provide additional services to the schools and communities through participation in health and special event fairs,
coordination of special awareness campaigns and public speaking engagements.
