Daily Archives: July 29, 2009

For the past three days, I have had the honor and privilege to plan the 2009 West Virginia Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) State Conference along side other members of the West Virginia Student Leadership Council (SLC). On November 15, over 200 SADD students from all around West Virginia will make their way to Cedar Lakes in Ripley, WV to embark on a packed three day program to educate teens about the issues affecting their areas and how they can make a difference.

In addition to planning conference, we had some great brainstorming and planning sessions. The SLC is divided into the Field Services and Programming teams. The Field Services team is concentrated on recruiting new SADD students, creating new SADD chapters, and connecting with outside organizations. The Programming team is concentrated on developing new and exciting programs to implement in SADD chapters and programs.

To further the development of West Virginia SADD, the Field Services team has chosen to use the four regions of the West Virginia Prevention Resource Center as their own. The adopted regions will assist West Virginia SADD to network with city and county leaders. This connection will allow individual SADD chapters to not only connect with their communities, but with the other chapters in the state. Other plans made by the Field Services team include having an annual report written by the SLC, an updated database with every school in the state with and without a SADD chapter, and the creation of more SADD chapters in elementary, middle, and high schools.

The Programming team is working on a publication ab0ut the modern activities that any SADD chapter can do. To make the publication more effective, the Programming team is connecting each project to one or more of the six prevention strategies: information dissemination, education, alternatives, problem identification and referral, environment, and community-based process.

Both the Field Services and Programming teams realize that the Internet is the top communication medium for young people. Therefore, a larger investment in the West Virginia SADD Web site, Facebook page, Twitter, and other social network pages is being considered.

All in all, these three days have been great. I’ve gotten to know my fellow SLC member a lot better, learned much about the drug prevention organizatins in West Virginia, and had a great time in the process. Hope to see you at the state conference!