SWAT extends mandate with new initiatives

Andrea Roberts
Times Intern

 

Strathmore Wheatland Addictions Team (SWAT) has expanded their mandate with the creation of two new initiatives that intented to foster positive youth development and community involvement in teaching about the dangers of addictions.
“We want to help society and our community kids get ahead of drugs, alcohol and other related addictions prior to the kids actually getting troubled by these things,” said Community Peace Officer Dean Young. “So we are looking at positive development, looking at parenting and looking at community programing for kids.”
As part of this programming, Young spoke of two new agendas the group has introduced.
Not Another Anonymous Face, one of the new initiatives aimed toward youth, is a presentation given to Crowther Memorial Junior High School health students that shows them real life stories about three people who have previously gone through addictive behavior.
The presentation specifically made to fit the request of Crowther teacher Laura Ryan to show the real life implications of addictive behavior.
Young explained that the group’s direction was expanded to include more than just alcohol and drug education because youth are already inundated with this information. Rather than making the kids listen, which he said seems to insult their intelligence, the group engages them on all levels of addictions.
The second initiative to be introduced is the Raising Youth, Lowering Risks program that looks at the concept of 40 developmental assets, characteristics that researchers have shown to contribute to the growth or lack of growth in youth.
Originally designed for people who worked with youth, it has now been opened to the public as SWAT was getting a lot of requests from parents for information on a number of topics such as how to deal with talking about addictions.
SWAT was formed in 2007 and was a collaborative effort in educating Strathmore and Wheatland County residents about substance abuse awareness.
While still continuing with their original mission they are broadening their horizons by using social media to reach more people. This is to reduce risk behaviours to improve the success rate of youth who grow up avoiding addictions.
Young commented that while successful prevention was hard to track, they had received feedback over the years saying some of their message had stuck with the youth they spoke with.
“SWAT is a collaborative effort,” said Young. “Every single member of the committee is responsible for the success of the group because we are not an established, for-profit large group with regular membership but we have a number of people that have come through our doors and we engage the students and parents in the area.”