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Youth Advisory Board (YAB) / REALITY Illinois Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention Youth Group - Pfister
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Prevention Services coordinates a county-wide alcohol and tobacco prevention youth group, combining youth from the Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force's Youth Advisory Board and Tobacco Free Lake County program's REALITY Illinois. In this program, high school students from all over the county learn advocacy skills by participating in hands-on activities promoting alcohol and tobacco compliance and policies throughout Lake County.
During the past school year, they have learned through interaction with local police departments that compliance checks are an important type of environmental prevention strategy that deters alcohol and tobacco outlets from selling to underage youth. They have also learned that frequent use of compliance checks decreases alcohol and tobacco sales to minors and are associated with reduced problems in the community associated with underage drinking or tobacco use. They have participated in conducting an assessment of the current compliance check practices taking place in Lake County by interviewing local police departments.
These students have used this information, along with the current alcohol and tobacco data from the Illinois Youth Survey, to compile a compelling presentation that will be conducted to the Antioch Police Department in April and at the Lake County Liquor Commissioners Forum on May 16th that is being hosted by the Lake County Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force. The goal of this presentation is to encourage all municipalities to conduct compliance checks consistently and frequently, and to report their results to the Lake County Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force.
Other successes include: Participating on a youth panel for the Lake County Juvenile Justice Prevention Conference in September, two tobacco-prevention radio ads and one underage drinking preven...
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