Warden group travels to Washington, D.C.

WARDEN - A group from Warden journeyed to Washington, D.C., last month as part of a campaign to prevent youth drug and alcohol abuse.

Warden Mayor Roldan Capetillo works with the Warden School District's Coalition for Youth Drug and Alcohol Prevention and was one of 11 people representing the town who made the trip. Others in the group included a member of the Washington State Patrol, a teacher, a local business owner, students, and city employees.

Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America held the one-week national conference featuring classes on how communities can prevent underage drinking and drug use.

Capetillo said Warden already takes steps to involve youth in community activities to provide healthy alternatives to alcohol and drugs.

"We're trying to provide a safe atmosphere for the kids, so what we'll do … we'll have an after-game barbecue at the Warden Community Senior Center. That way they can go in and play with the pool tables and play video games and just have a student atmosphere," he said.

Capetillo said the conference offered education about impacts of drugs and alcohol and ways to prevent prescription medication from being abused.

"The eye-opener for me was how much of the abuse is going on with prescription medication on the youth. I really was not aware of the youth (having) that much access to this," Capetillo said. "How to educate the parents to take care of the prescription medication, where the kids obviously don't have any access, is kind of the same thing with alcohol. If you have alcohol in your home (you need to know) how to prevent your children from reaching it or from using it," he said.

He said it was beneficial to learn what other communities were doing about the same issues and seeing how to use the information.

Jessica Gomez, community coordinator for the Warden Community Coalition, who heads a five-year grant program, traveled to Washington, D.C., and said she learned more about the role the coalition could play in drug and alcohol abuse prevention.

Gomez said an important part of the program is the social norm campaign, which promotes the positive message most youth aren't drinking.

"It starts to put the message out there that most kids are not drinking and the goal of that is to decrease the misconception that there is, and thus it increases healthy behavior by letting everybody know that the majority of kids don't drink," Gomez said. "It's the switch on using the positive data instead of the negative."

Many youth have a perception the majority of students drink, but the program helps to put it out there that the number is not that high. Responses gathered to gauge the level of underage drinking came from the Washington State Healthy Youth Survey.

"We are also looking do to a community-wide survey and that's one of the things that we're working on at the coalition," Gomez said. Gomez said she left the conference with a greater understanding of the roles the community groups have.

"I think spending that time with the coalition members and being in a place where other coalitions are represented really helps to get a grasp of what coalitions can do," Gomez said.

She said the students attending the conference learned how influential they can be in the campaign.

"I would say it is seeing how youth can be involved in the community to help mobilize a positive movement or action that will benefit the whole community," she said.

The Warden Community Coalition is hosting a town hall meeting in Warden on March 24.