School-based Prevention Programs
We provide extensive strengths-based education and prevention programs in all MDI and outer island schools. This program is funded in part by the Nathan Bright Keegan Memorial Education Fund. The school prevention education curriculum includes lessons exploring honesty, integrity and personal values, resiliency, peer pressure and refusal skills, and specific information about cocaine, marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, heroine, and opiates.

Ten Sessions That Change Lives
Pre-adolescents and adolescents experience difficulty in considering the future consequences of today’s decisions, and in applying information about risks to themselves. These factors, combined with peer pressure and curiosity are a dangerous combination when drugs and/or alcohol become available. At the middle school level we offer a ten-lecture series based on strengths and self-direction. Understanding the risks and consequences of substance use empowers youth to make better choices.

Knowledge is Empowerment
High school is a time of personal growth and social change; difficult decisions and uncertainty. The availability of drugs and alcohol, and the exposure to addiction in fellow students, friends, and family are some of the more difficult challenges faced. Our lectures give teens the knowledge to make informed decisions.

parent education: table talks

Underage drinking is a serious problem in Maine, and parents can be a powerful in preventing youth from drinking. Teens are far less likely to drink alcohol if they believe their parents would disapprove, or if they believe their parents will find out about it. Alcohol can be a tricky subject and all too often, parents are unsure how to talk about it with other parents. The Table Talks Program model was developed to provide parents with a comfortable opportunity to communicate openly with each other about underage drinking and how to prevent it. Each discussion is meant to be friendly and relaxed and held in a home or a similarly comfortable community setting (for example, a local coffee shop meeting room, or public library).

Table Talks is brought to MDI through the collaborative effort of Healthy Acadia and Acadia Family Center. To schedule a Table Talk Session or to find out more about the program contact: Kelly Corson at Healthy Acadia kelly@healthyacadia.org or 288-5331