Find ways to engage them, and you'll be amazed at how much more effective your work would be.Īnd to young people, I would say exactly the same thing. Find ways to meet with them in an authentic capacity. So to all of our, my prevention counterparts and prevention partners, I would say, you know, engage young people in the work that you're doing. But I continue to be amazed at the solutions, the passion, the engagement that we see and our young people coast to coast, and their desire to bring about effective change. Right? We criticize them for kind of being the problem. One of the things that's, you know, most discouraging to me is that, I think so often throughout history, we've kind of ragged on young people. Find out how we can connect with them in a way that's authentic and that's genuine. Right? Being able to pivot our work to meet young people where they are. If COVID-19 and the year of 2020 taught us anything, it's that that hated word of pivot. They are truly the experts in helping us combat the pressures that they face each and every day. So now we talk not only about the issues of mobility, safety in the traffic safety arena, substance abuse, mental health and leadership development, but we try to do it all through this peer-to-peer lens.Īnd so to your question about what is it that prevention specialists should know? I think the story of SADD tells a really powerful narrative in that we need to listen to young people. And so our board, wanting to listen to the needs of our students, changed the name to Destructive Decisions back in the late 90s, actually. You know, we were started back in 1981, originally founded as Students Against Driving Drunk, with the focus singularly on the issue of impaired driving.Īnd even though we know that continues to be a critical issue for young people, our students came to us and said that there were so many other issues that they were facing. It's an exciting time for SADD as we celebrate four decades of working with youth. So what, from your perspective, do prevention professionals need to consider when they're working with students? And the flip side of that, what should students keep top of mind, you know, when they are working with prevention professionals? You have a long standing history of empowering youth to get involved in education and prevention initiatives. You've got one of those ending in zero years. Our first question SADD has a longstanding history, and I believe, this year it's 40 years, your major milestone. I'm excited about today's podcast because I think we're going to change a little bit of maybe people's perceptions about who SADD is and who they tend to focus on. Rick Birt: Rich, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Rick has a bachelor's degree in political science and urban studies from Wittenberg University, and he is pursuing a master's degree in public administration and leadership from the Ohio State University.Īnd with that, Rick, welcome to the podcast. A SADD alumni himself, Rick has over a decade of prevention experience, and before joining the SADD team, he led Midwest Operations as the Midwest Education Outreach Coordinator for Impact Teen Drivers. So, Rick Birt serves as the president and chief executive officer of SADD, where he is responsible for leading the organization's programming, outreach, development and communication efforts while leading, SADD's national staff.Īn expert in matters of health and safety among youth, Rick has authored several publications that feature SADD's unique form of a peer-to-peer approach that is vital to creating lasting behavior change in youth. Let me tell you a little bit about Rick before I introduced him. Our guest today is Rick Birt from Students Against Destructive Decisions. Welcome to this episode of Prevention Profiles: Take Five. Rich Lucey: Hi, this is Rich Lucey with the Drug Enforcement Administration's Community Outreach and Prevention Support Section.
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