Preventing Substance Use Among Youth: Insights from Tyler Morton in Kansas

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake white. And today I’m hanging out with a good friend Tyler Morton, representing the youth grew out in Kansas. So Tyler, welcome to the show how you doing?

I’m doing good, man. Thank you for having me on. Again, it’s good to get back on here and speak some prevention.

Right? I know, it’s been such a like a while since we did this. And I know stuff. It feels like it’s either things are moving crazy fast and prevention, and it’s hard to keep up. Or if you have yet to build momentum. Sometimes it’s painfully slow. But I’m excited to catch up with you and hear what kind of things your students are up to and what you’re up to out in, in Kansas. And I mean, it’ll only be a couple of months. It feels like until I’m out there working with you guys for the conference this summer, which I’m super excited about too.

Yeah, I know you’ve been I know you’ve been traveling like a madman and going crazy. And you know, I figured if you’re gonna go to places like Miami and New York and California, you probably should come to Kansas too. I mean, there’s plenty of things to do out here. Biggest ball of yarn or one of those things out this direction. So I can give you a little taste of Midwest a little bit so.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Man. I can’t be like going to beaches all the time. We got to weed the fields need plowing, bro. Let’s go. So well what is in case people haven’t seen you in the last episode, just give us a little intro to what you do out in Kansas and how you work with prevention. And then we’ll dive into some fun things you’re up to. 

Yeah, so Orange County, Kansas. That would be the Great Bend area. Hoisington Ellenwood are some of our bigger cities basically smack dab in the middle of Kansas for those that are trying to find it on a map. And we have a we have a community coalition’s called the Central Kansas Partnership and youth crews, one of the task forces under that. And so our our job is to serve youth in Barton County, sixth to 12th grade is the is the group that we work with. And and so yeah, we’ve been we’ve been busy the the task force, I am here under a drug free communities grant bark County was awarded that a couple of years back. And the reason that communities get awarded with those grants is because the CDC looks and evaluates counties across the country that are having issues with substance use among among youth, specifically six to 12th grade my my focuses with the actual task force are marijuana and alcohol. But as everything goes with prevention, there’s a lot of factors that play into that. So we take a look at risk and protective factors, we take a look at what’s happening in our community, community mapping available resources available, how available substances are and where are some of the hotspots that are these things are taking place, and safe locations for our kids to we need to be able to educate just as much on places kids can go and really try to enhance those places. So that we have more more things available for our youth. Obviously, out here in Kansas, especially in smaller cities like this, our kids have a tendency to get a little more bored. And the sports are kind of the big thing here, which is awesome. We have a lot of great sports leagues and rec leagues and things like that. But the whole idea is to have more for to help the kids stay out of trouble and then obviously give them a platform to be advocates to their peers and go and help those that are struggling more on their own in their own journeys. And, and so that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re doing out here.

Effective Communication Strategies for Engaging Youth in Substance Use Prevention

Yeah, that is great. One thing that I when you were chatting I was thinking about is kind of with the with the show, because you’ve been doing this for a while and you’re working with the students directly. You’re traveling across the county. I’m curious with this detail. When do you meet with students that’s convenient for them? And how do you communicate with them in a way that works for them?

Yeah, so those have been those have been tricky things obviously. It’s an it’s an ever moving targets. I think anytime you’re working with youth, especially since they don’t necessarily always control their schedules. You have parents in sports and church and all kinds of things and we want them to be as involved in pro social as they possibly can. We think that’s, that’s a great thing. But especially around here sports, you know, they take up six days a week, sometimes seven days a week. Our kids are very dedicated to sports. Same thing with church activities and things like that. So when we first started this, I and I came in a few months after they’d already set the development for youth cruise so they started this back in June of 2021, they got funded in October of 2021. I came on at the end of February of 2022. And back then we had 12 to 15 kids a little bit easier to manage schedules and stuff, there wasn’t as much input. Now we have, and we only had one study at that point, we were only in Great Bend at that point. Now we have three cities. So we have meetings regularly in Great Ben, Elwood and Hoisington. The current schedule right now is we meet on the first three Sundays of every month, from four to five. So we’ll do Great Ben, the first weekend Hoisington, the second Ellenwood, the third weekend just for one hour. But in addition to that, we have conferences, and community service projects and things we’re doing inside the schools. And so we get a lot of FaceTime with these kids. That’s kind of our main FaceTime that we get. But when we’re in the schools and stuff, and we’re doing things like that, we try to at least have something going on maybe once a month, at least once a quarter just to keep everybody engaged. And and it’s challenging. Right now we have, I would say probably I think our active roster at the moment is about 75 kids across, I would say 50 or 60 of those are pretty frequently with us some it’s been out a little bit because of sports and holidays and whatnot. Communication wise, there for a while I was literally texting kids and parents nonstop just text messages, emails, phone calls, we’ve done away from that a little bit just because that’s a lot of people to manage. And so now we’re using the GroupMe platform, which a lot of people are familiar with . That’s really cool, because you can send out messages that go instantly out to everybody. Parents can communicate directly with us, we do we try to do a good job of separating professional and personal lives. And so we want parents to be able to get a hold of us. But that phone that we keep at at work is not with us 24/7. And so that gives them an opportunity to send a message and let us get back to them. The kids can talk amongst each other, which is great we have we’re able to set different groups for different activities. So for instance, this week, coming on Tuesday, we’ll be going to the state capitol up in Topeka for an advocacy day. And so we put those parents and those kids just in that group, so that way, there’s not 100 messages going out to the other 60 members that are not doing that. I would say that’s probably the biggest challenge right now. It’s just the net amount of messages that come through parents, I always say I had to turn off my notifications, because it was just ringing nonstop. But we also want to encourage the kids to talk and socialize with each other, especially when we’re working on projects and things because right now there’s a series, especially coming off of COVID. And some of the other stuff we’ve dealt with the last couple of years, the social experience for kids is just completely different than it was even 1020 years ago, you know, cell phones, Snapchat, all your social media stuff, they’re talking all the time, but they’re not talking at all. And so when we’re trying to come up with prevention ideas, and you really have to put your thought in your heart into it, having the opportunity to connect with your other peers is huge. And so that’s what we’re, that’s how we’re communicating at the moment, seems to be working pretty well so.

That’s great. So what I’m hearing you say is don’t be afraid of doing stuff on the the nights and the weekends, whatever it takes to reach the students. And that also means that you’re doing stuff, you know, in the school during their school day. They’re doing projects and outreach and all that stuff. But then also, a tool that you mentioned was Group Me, which is, you know, you can download on your phone, there’s an app, and then you can set up different groups versus like, hey, there’s the advocacy team, here’s maybe the social media team, they can all have their little groups, but then you also have parents. And I think you’re right to the, my pet peeve is when I’m on a group message, and it just dinging all the time. And like my family as well. And they Oh, I’m gonna be the first one to leave the group. Because I just get so frustrated with it. So to have something where you can opt in and out of a specific group, and it’s only stuff that’s tailored to you. Sounds really, really cool. So anyone listening, check out that app, it could be helpful to you.

And its stuff there’s I mean, there’s a lot of communication stuff. You mentioned about you know, meeting the kids where they are, it’s it’s impossible when you get a group that’s big, and I know some coalition’s are dealing with five kids, some are dealing with 50 kids, you know, or whatever, you’re never going to find the right time to meet with everybody. And you got to that was one thing I really had to take my lumps on when I first started is I could not understand why people just wouldn’t come forward. They told me they wanted to do it. They acted like they want to do it. They said they want to do it. And sometimes it just works out like that. And so we really try to encourage but again we encourage those other pro socials, we want the kids to be involved in something and and yeah Sunday’s you know, that’s that’s our family day. Ain’t no my family, we go to church, I know that, you know, some of the other leadership team, they do the same thing. It’s our time to eat out with our families and do different things. But, you know, to give up an hour and actually have kids show up. I mean, I think our, our biggest media in the last six months had 40 kids at it, you know, if I have to give up a couple hours on the Sunday to get kids there, to me, that’s my way of showing my commitment to them. And vice versa. So that when we have an ask of them, it doesn’t seem like we’re, you know, not willing to sacrifice because that’s always the conversation, if you give them the opportunity to tell you, you know what the best time is, but also give you all the all the times that are not good. You’ll you’ll have no calendar left. So that’s, that’s what we try to aim towards.

Celebrating Youth Empowerment and Achievements in Substance Use Prevention

Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good. What are what are some things that have been really encouraging to you to see the students do recently? Or what progress or wins can we celebrate with you that’s happened maybe over the last six months or so?

Yeah, like I said, our meetings have been pretty steady, especially a great been meeting. That’s kind of our main hub. That’s where our majority of our kids are from. So I think right now we’re averaging 20-25 Kids meeting, which has been awesome. We’ve had a couple of projects we’ve been working on. So we are getting ready to do a new logo piece. We have a couple of bigger things coming up here in the summer, including our end of year celebration. That’s like our big party with all the families to come together. Just to celebrate, it’s an early June, which sounds kind of funny, because it’s obviously not the end of what everybody else thinks to be the year. It’s the end of our fiscal year. That’s why we do it then got all the hard, all the grunt work all the paperwork, and then we go on to have a celebration. We also have you coming out to us in mid June, for the Wildling Conference, which is a conference that we were given to vote on just because of the work we’ve been doing. And so you know, having kids show up in attendance, you know, we just did some projects over spring break, we had 16 kids show up over spring break. A lot of you know, coalition’s tend to get away from even trying to do anything on spring break, because they assume nobody’s going to come. So that was very cool. So having the attendance is a big thing for us. One of the things that really moved me recently was I mentioned we were coming up with the new logo and stuff. And so we had a meeting in the first part of March right before spring break. And we had one of our our youth lead the meeting and do a presentation on how to use the Canva program, which a lot of people use that for building posters, building artwork, whatever else they want to build with it. So she led it. Again, we had about 12 to 15 kids there. And we say guys just create a logo, put something on it, here’s our original, let’s revamp it, let’s make a message. Well, in that group meeting, we had a bunch of kids go home and in their own spare time, start making logos and start sending stuff then start sending things in to make invites with and stickers with. And that was probably the most conversation I’ve had. I’ve seen the kids have between each other, maybe ever. We ended up voting over 20 logos, which was awesome. The parents got involved and were throw their votes and their ideas out there too. So that was really cool. Just to see the kids. I mean, they do really good to take initiatives with with some of our other projects. But those the first one, they really owned it, they spent personal time on it, which I think is massive. We have a group of so I do. I work with sixth graders in Barton county as well on a thing called All Stars, which is early prevention. And and so some of these kids are just now joining us in youth crew. It’s a whole separate deal. They’ve been with us since January, maybe February, they started really coming out of their shells and posts and stuff. So I really thought that was awesome. And I’m really proud of that. We got our first billboard up that is on one of the main highways between Great Ben and Hoisington. It’s a billboard about the effects of marijuana use. And the caption essentially says “how to something that makes you high make you feel so low.” And it’s like a happy marijuana leaf and a really sad marijuana leaf. And we put it on that highway out there. That gets I think 32,000 impressions a day. So people have seen it, there was an article written about it. So you know, with our one of our substances focused on is marijuana. We thought that was really cool. And that was a step that we wanted to get done. Then just planning for the conference. We know you’re coming out here we are trying to make it really cool for you and and make it really cool for all the kids. It’s supposed to be about a I think a little over 100 people. The kids have created a logo for it. The kids obviously you know hadn’t put the book you their play the activities. I think we’re getting a vape exhibit now. I mean just all kinds of things are coming together. And not only are they doing that, but they’re also talking to the state about the things that they want. And they’re advocating for the stuff that they want, even as far as going out and saying, you know, this is the logo we created. And we know it’s not your typical logo, and there’s some things about it, you guys want to change, but we want it to look like this. And if you really want kids to get involved with this kind of they you need to let us have, this needs to be our piece. And just the advocacy part, going up and talking to legislators we did one a few weeks ago, we’re going to do it again, this Tuesday, we have to look up a state legislator to actually live in town with us. And they’re trying to get her to come in and do more stuff. It’s just, they’re really taking ownership. And I think when you talk prevention, ownership is the first key to everything. If they could live it, if they could experience it, not necessarily on the wrong side of things. But if they could truly understand why they’re doing this, then you’ll take off quick.

Yeah, that’s good. And I think what’s so neat is you mentioned the logo project, and how passionate they got about it is for each student, there’s probably something that they’re interested in, and it’s going to brighten them up. So when they get a chance to be a part of that, it’s like, wait, you took time away from our meeting, at home, you could be doing anything, and you chose to do this. And as you said, it’s increasing the ownership. But I love that something so small. You know, and I know this wasn’t your first project, but like something so small as “Hey, create a logo, create a poster, come up with a name.” And the thing that happens that I’m seeing too, is like when I do these speaking engagements, and it’s the launch of a prevention club, we’ll have this leadership training afterwards. And we’ll be brainstorming ideas, we’ll be talking about plans that they can do. And the goal is just to catch a vision, right, so that they get excited about doing something. It can be small or big. But the question they always ask is, are we really going to do this? And it’s such a funny question, because it means that at some point, an adult came in and said, Hey, dream big. But nothing’s going to happen, right? So I think what’s cool about knowing that you’re, you’re in the ground, you’re you’re doing this work, you’re supporting the students is there continually realizing, no, this is actually going to happen, the work I put in, is going to lead to something really, really cool. And I’m going to get to experience it and feel really proud of it. And one of the groups I’m working with right now is in Wisconsin, and this coming up. It’s actually Monday, April 1, they’re having their first event. And I’m seeing even though I’m not there in person, right, we have their advisors that are in the schools, we’ve got someone from the coalition that’s kind of like you, it’s the youth director. And after every meet them, I have them send me a video saying, hey, you know, report back to Jake brag on everything that you accomplished. And it is like the highlight of my week. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I get these cool videos of these students saying, Here’s what we talked about, here’s what we did. Here’s what we made. And to see them fired up and making plans. And it’s just so cool, because as you said, they’re they’re increasing their ownership. They’re developing leadership skills, and they’re creating buy in for something really, really positive. That could change their community. Oh, it’s awesome.

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s, that’s really cool. And I think, probably the next thing, or soon, I’m sure you’ll ask about the challenges and we’ll have some feedback on that, too. Yeah. Yeah, it’s just, it’s just always really cool. To see youth and again, like I said earlier, I feel like it I feel like it’s just a completely different experience than I had when I when I was their age. And, you know, high school was almost 20 years ago. So I’m becoming one of those people now. But I, yeah, it’s just, you know, and once you can get that fire going, once you it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s like a fire, that’s exactly what remind you of, you know, you gotta get everything just right and get a spark. And once you can get a spark going, it can take off and it’s difficult because you want to keep those really high involvement moments going. And sometimes you won’t always have those sometimes there’s gonna be a little bit of a lull. And so it’s different than sports. It’s different than having that same weekly rotation going on practices, things like that. It it takes it takes patience is by far one of the things I’ve learned the most with this so.

Embracing Challenges and Celebrating Breakthroughs in Youth Empowerment

Yeah well that’s that’s a that’s a perfect segue. Is that is that part of your challenge then? Right now or do you have something else?

Yeah, you know, patients definitely one of them. You know, when you hit those lows and when you you know, have meetings aren’t as attended and things like that, which is why we tried to shift a little bit during the summertime, we move our stuff from weekends to weekdays because we want to encourage families to travel and things like that. And even if even if they’re going to travel regardless, we just try to try to make the best use of everyone’s time. And that can be hard as a sponsor. You know, I know we’ve talked a lot about the youth. But even as a sponsor, when kids aren’t showing up, and kids aren’t communicating as much, and stuff that can become discouraging, you know, right now we have the three cities that are all going. But we have a lot of kids that are filtering out a great band and go into some of those other cities to try to support them. And so, again, it’s about finding the ownership of those kids that are in those cities to say, Hey, guys, do you do you want this here? Do you knew what’s the situation because every town is a little bit different. They were talking about big mass of people versus much smaller demographics. And so, you know, part of we have a pledge as part of our task as part of youth crew. And one of the things in there is having the kids invite two new members each year. And that doesn’t sound like a lot. But when you have friends constantly telling, you know, and stuff it, it can be discouraging. And so I would say, you know, patience, and just letting things letting things happen. But also communicating with the group about what we need to do as a team to try to correct course, when we get to those points, I’d say that’s the big thing. You know, we’re still working through some data collection stuff, that’s been a little bit of a struggle, I think a lot of people are having that right now. There’s some legislation that happened here in Kansas, that requires more paperwork and stuff, which is tougher on everybody. And so we’re working on how to get great data, get data that’s accurate. And you know, if you have a long survey, making sure that whoever you know, the kids are taking that survey or filling out to the best of their ability, because when you get data, if it’s not accurate, or if it’s not truthful data, it really doesn’t paint a good picture regardless. And so that’s been a little bit of a challenge. And this is probably the first time we really had where some of our older students I’ve been with us for a year or two are now starting to make that segue from middle school into high school or late middle school now. And of course, as they get older, and they start driving, they start adding more activities, some form relationships, things like that. And so there becomes a lot more that we come up against. And so just try to meet them where they’re at. And let them know that they’re with us, they always have a spot on the team. We had a we did a Halloween party, this past October, one of our one of our youth leaders, leadership members, they love Halloween. It’s one of our kids mom’s, she threw a Halloween party for us. We got a muddy bus, of course, we read a party bus. And we had like 45 Kids packed on this party, but some that we hadn’t seen in a while. And it was cool. When we were there, some were sitting around just talking about how they’d been together for two years. And this and this and this, and just fives like that, where we get everybody together. And that’s kind of why we do the end of the year celebration to just to bring it back. You know, it’s like family time, you know, get together for Christmases and holidays and stuff and, and just let the kids know, you know, look, we love you guys, we appreciate the work you’ve put in, we hope you can continue to do it. If you can’t, you always have a spot with us. And just being as supportive as we can giving them another place they can go as they continue to work through life, because it’s not always just substances, it could be anything. And we want the kids to know that they have support behind them at all times.

Ah, that is so cool. And I love that. I love how you turned this challenge right of keeping students engaged during the summer. But then naturally, it led to what you’re doing as the end of the year, events and party. And I love that that one of the students loves Halloween. So you use that and support them and their interests to have this bus and this experience. And it reminds me of this experience, I don’t want to celebrate with you. So for everyone listening, I’m a Christian, I’m very open about my faith, it is not my job to sell you on it if you don’t believe that’s okay. But I think what’s really cool about your example is those students who are on that party bus, maybe they weren’t engaged for a little bit, you know, maybe they left the club and now they’re being invited to this event. Maybe they’ll come back and check it out. But I think the same thing that happens in faith will happen in this club, which is you don’t really understand the seeds that you’re planting. And the students who come in they’re going to get that information they’re going to feel acceptance and belonging. They’re going to grow while they’re with you. If they choose maybe they even make a mistake for a time and they start using is there’s nothing get take away that experience they had with you. And just to celebrate man like Tyler, we had this student. Personally, when I started in youth ministry, when COVID happened, I didn’t continue Vive 18 full time, like I was, I, you know, all those contracts ended. And I did not embrace the virtual stuff. I was like a, it’s not a good experience for the students. I don’t love it either. So I’m going to take a break. And my church asked me to be basically the youth director. And I said, Yes. And it was amazing. I loved it. But I remember there was this one, one student, that was always giving me trouble. Always testing the boundaries. And like, honestly, I was like, Oh, I don’t even want to invite him to stuff. Because what if he ruins the vibe for the rest of the students? And it was a real test. And, dude, what’s cool is the this camp, these one time events where you can do something special, was, that’s what Captain engaged, you know, a couple times a year a comeback for camp, we’ve ended up making a huge step in his faith. And, you know, now he’s in high school. He’s a fantastic leader, given his life to purpose of Jesus, and is getting baptized on Sunday. 

Well, it’s awesome. Yeah. I think, you know, we, I have a similar story to that. My own personal testimony would probably play into that a little bit. I know, Youth leaders, and I wish I could remember all them and church specifically played a huge role in my life, I actually still have a connection to one of my why I thought he was my one as leader, I’m not exactly sure what his full title was, out of Washington State. I was with him when I was seven, eight years old. And I just went back to Washington a couple years ago for my sister’s wedding, and actually caught up with him and went to a Mariners game and stuff. And it’s been, you know, 30 years now or whatever. Well, a big role in that. But we even have one of those kids. We have several of those kids in our group, but we one specifically, you know, struggles with school. Academia is not is not what it’s about for them. But they show up to every youth career meeting, they’ve come to every meeting, I think, for the last six months, or maybe I’ve missed one in six months, always early, you know, gets ready gets dressed for the purpose, which they’ve actually told us before that one of the reasons they don’t like school is because they get bullied a lot. They get teased a lot about hygiene and things like that. And so we’ve had some, some conversations about that, about how to change that and how to help and how can we help and they’ve made an effort to change that. But they come to all the youth crew meetings, they participate in all the activities. I can’t explain it. I can’t explain why not schools have. And they told me a couple of weeks ago, they said, you know, look, I feel safe here, I don’t feel bullied here. I feel like I’m doing something here. And then we were coming back from a meeting last week, two weeks ago, whenever it was, and we were just in the car talking. And we weren’t really talking. I think we were listening to music. We were really talking about anything in born. And they look at me and they go, I met my dad for the first time today. And I said, Wow, I said, you’ve never met your dad before. And they go nope. And I said, How was that experience, and it, it wasn’t a great experience. In fact, it wasn’t a good experience at all. But the fact that they shared that with us the fact that we could walk through that together and talk about, you know, what that means and how that may affect your life. And, and whether you choose to let that define you, or whether you choose to let that be just another part of your story. And you and you continue to use that to evolve into the person you want to be. It was it was really It was humbling. It was a fact that to me as a as a youth leader, specifically. That’s the kind of breakthrough I’m looking for with kids. I mean, obviously I want to keep them from using substances and, and those kinds of things. But even those victories right there, like those almost mean more than anything else that we’re doing, because they’re so powerful. You know, and if I have that effect one day on somebody I know, I know, youth ministry leaders have that a lot. I know big brothers and sisters have that a lot. I’ve heard about it. If one day, the kid looks back and says you know, he caught me at the right time and really changed the path. I would I would be fulfilled. I could do it for free if I needed to and I’d be fulfilled for life. That’s that’s what I aim for. And I hope that’s what all the other coalition’s are aiming for too, is just to impact the students and meet them where they are. I think that’s that’s the big thing.

Yeah, exactly. Because you don’t you don’t know the effect that you’re having. But the truth that you are an adult who shows up consistently, who cares about them, you never know the impact that that’s going to make or what it has and what that student is going through at home. I love that story too. Just Just the fact that you’re there to listen, and to be that person that could chat with them about it and debrief. Especially since right that dad wasn’t there to be that person. It sounds like because you just met them. Is that’s a pivotal moment. And I think about I, the posture that I love in people who work with young people is this. It’s not that we love conflict, but that you understand the value that when conflict happens when sadness happens, when emotions are high, that is an opportunity to speak into a young person’s life in a way that they’ll remember. So if they’re causing you trouble, or if they’re really upset with you, or maybe they’re going through a really tough, tough circumstance at home, and you’re like, Man, this is tough for me, because now, now this is me going through this circumstance with them. Just realizing that that’s a moment to truly change that person’s life. And it takes sometimes bold words, and really bold caring about that student, and you have no idea. It could be a defining moment in their entire life. So for everyone listening that just realize if you’re not directly doing it, but if you’re in prevention, you are you’re at least supporting and indirectly doing this stuff by the work that you’re facilitating and supporting in your community. And, and, yeah, we just don’t get to know but it’s, it’s amazing, and it’s life changing. And that’s why I love love being in this field. But Tyler, I want to I want to ask you something to close out this in like a real kind of like an end on a practical note. Can you give us one tool, you already mentioned GroupMe, but is there another tool that you use that maybe other people could try? That helps you in your day to day, week to week with your prevention work?

Harnessing Digital Tools for Effective Youth Prevention Work

Yeah, I, I tried, I tried to become knowledgeable as much as I can. There’s a lot of tools that are thrown out there and the youth are probably actually way more familiar with stuff than I am at this point. You know, we’ve talked a lot about the Snapchats and the Tiktoks. You know, if you’re not utilizing social media, I would say definitely utilize your social media. I don’t know how everybody else does it. Me personally, at 35 years old. When I go out and look for stuff. When I look for reviews, when I look to find out about groups and stuff. Facebook, social media is kind of where I start. So obviously, if you’re not utilizing that, I would definitely do that. Probably the next biggest tool I use outside of GroupMe is Canva. And for people that are not used to Canva. And I would even go as this far I would say I’m very limited in my knowledge of Canva. So even though I’ve used it for two years, if you have time to explore on it, explore on it. Because like I said, with the logos and stuff, I know some of our schools here, I think the high school specifically uses them uses Canva. But for younger kids, late elementary to middle school, whatever your whatever your group is you’re working with, definitely utilize that it’s super user friendly, you can make big teams on it so that they can use it on their own. There’s a lot of free, free items that come as part of Canva. And so kids can get on there just play around. And it really doesn’t. It’s not one of those things where when you finalize something it’s coming through you have to pay for it or whatever, it really gives you a huge platform just to try out and be expressive. And I think because of all the artistic stuff that comes with it, everything that’s been put into the program, I think it’s phenomenal. If people and that’s just me saying that I am on a scale of 1 to 10 I’m probably a four on it. I’m gonna guess based on I learned stuff, even when our youth were teaching a few weeks back, I was like, oh, that’s how you do that. So play with the tool. It’s awesome. You can make your posters off of billboards, T shirts, stickers. When I think about prevention work, I think of things like sticker shock, billboards, posters, in school, wall art invites for stuff. I mean, you name it, you can probably use it on Canva. So that would be my next big thing. Obviously, the goal is to learn a new tool every time and so going to CADCA and then some of these other conferences we go through throughout the year. Hopefully I’ll have another one for you when we talk next.

So yeah, that sounds great. We will thank you, Tyler. Thanks for the work you’re doing and for spending some time with me. Extra time that you didn’t have to do so I appreciate you a lot. Yeah, appreciate you. Yeah, and for everyone listening. This has been another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I hope it was helpful for you. And if it was, please do me a favor. Leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. And I’m going to read I’m going to thank Miss Mary Fran, who gave us a five star and said such an important topic to generate conversations around. I’m only a few episodes in thus far and loving it. So thank you so much, Miss Mary. I appreciate you leaving us a rating and review. And of course if you know somebody who would be someone great to talk to in the prevention field, and I would just say anyone is great to connect with. So if someone is in this space and wants to share some ideas, some wins, some challenges. I would love to chat with them because we all can learn from one another in this field and we do better work together than we do alone. So we’ll see you next Monday for another episode. Talk to you later.