Town halls to address teen drinking

With Red Ribbon Week set for next week, the Partners for Prevention of Teen Drinking have organized a series of town halls to address the high percentage of alcohol use in Randolph County.

"October has Red Ribbon Week nationally and that is a significant awareness point," said Dennis Trask, youth prevention coordinator at the Human Service Center in Red Bud. "Typically, schools will have some sort of programming related to drug prevention and we're just building on that."

Town halls have been scheduled for tomorrow at Chester Grade School and Tuesday at Sparta High School. Both meetings start at 6 p.m.

"We're going to have a pretty-sizable panel," Trask said. "There's three events (Red Bud's occurred Oct. 18) and seven or so people on each panel. Two or three are the same and four or five will be different at each event."

The town halls come at a time when Illinois Youth Survey results showed teen teen alcohol abuse in Randolph County at 53 percent, almost a full 10 percent higher than the state average (44.4) and significantly higher than the national average (37.4 percent).

While teen alcohol use has dropped slightly at both the state and national level from 2012, it has increased 4 percent in Randolph County.

"We want to make people aware of the degree of the problem," Trask said. "We also want to make people aware that there is a legitimate, solid process that we're using that's been successful elsewhere and will be successful here."

The 88-question survey, and the resulting research and analysis, is being paid for through a Partnership for Success grant that was awarded to the Human Service Center.

The fully-funded federal grant is for five years and is being used to create a coalition to address high rates of teen use of alcohol in the county.

Trask said the 24-member coalition started meeting in February.

"We have a nice, varied array of leaders involved," Trask said. "To get the grant, we had to get letters of support from all the school superintendents, mayors of Chester, Red Bud and Sparta.

"Mayors are liquor commissioners of those municipalities. The county commissioners supported the grant. Sheriff and police chiefs for Red Bud, Sparta and Chester."

Trask said one of the perceptions the coalition is fighting is that the high percentages are not unexpected.

"When we share this information with different folks, the response is not one of surprise," he said. "It's one of 'you know, I'm not surprised, I'm aware of this issue.'"

Trask was asked how peer pressure factors into teen alcohol use.

"Peer pressure is one of a host of contributing factors," he said. "It has some influence on young people, it has a less influence on other people.

"We hope to identify two or three of the most significant issues that contribute to teen drinking. But we're just not there yet, but we're getting there."

Trask noted he hopes to use the data collected and feedback from the town halls to formulate a plan by mid-November that will help address the issue.

"(The coalition) has been very effective elsewhere," he said. "In Tazewell County (in the Peoria area), they identified teen DUIs as the primary issue and in three years, they've decreased that by 65 percent.

"These coalitions have been successful overall in reducing alcohol use, marijuana use, prescription drug abuse and things of that nature."

Trask noted that parental responsibility is important.

"One simple thing that works is parents who talked to their kids about what their expectations are regarding use of alcohol, they reduce use of alcohol by 50 percent," he said. "When parents do set expectations and do check on them on where they are and whom they're with, it really works."