“Empowering Recovery: A Conversation with Ann Herbst, Executive Director of Young People in Recovery”
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Party Talk. Today I am talking with Anne Herbst. She is the Executive Director of young people in recovery. It’s the national nonprofit that supports youth and young adults in recovery from substance use disorders. Please enjoy this episode with Ann, well first off, Ann will you just tell me, first will you tell me how to pronounce your last name.
Oh, yeah. So my last name is Herbst. And it’s an interesting last name because it means Autumn in German. So this is my season.
All right. That’s awesome. So Herbst means autumn.
It means Autumn. Yeah.
Very cool.
Somebody in my husband’s family back in the old country, I guess, you know, moved somewhere in Autumn. It was like, What’s your name? It’s like Joe. Sorry, we already have a Joe. You can be Joe Autumn. Yeah.
Meet Ann Herbst, the Executive Director of YPR
That’s so good. So then how did you get into the work that you’re doing with young people in recovery? I love you want to give us like a little intro into what you’re doing now and how you got there?
Yeah, absolutely so I’m Ann Herbst. I’m the Executive Director of young people in recovery. I’ve been at the organization since 2014, I was actually the second full time paid employee there, which is kind of cool. YPR as we are known, was founded in 2010, by young people, which we define just loosely, as under age 30. But people of all ages are welcome to be a part of the organization. But back in 2010, there were a number of young people who kept meeting at different conferences, they were all in recovery, they would find themselves on these panels, you know, that we’re like, “what do young people want? What do young people need?” And they all agreed that basically, you know, we all know what mostly, prevention looks like. Although at that time, it was still not as evidence based in the focus as it was, it was a lot of, you know, people my age dressing up in McGruff, the Crime Dog outfits, spur dare , you know, and like telling them don’t, you know, all the things that you could use it at home to to get high, and it was like, Oh, I didn’t know, I could go. And then like, everybody would go and have Robitussin when they got home. So not necessarily the outcomes that they really had intended. But yes, I know, a number of people who learned like about substance use through dare wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Right? Oh, man, that’s tragic.
Yeah. So. So the young people said, Okay, so we got an F minus and prevention we went on to use to misuse be, you know, develop a substance use disorder. The good news is, we’re still alive, we went into treatment, but now we’re out in the world. And, you know, we’re going back to the same homes, the same schools, the same social networks, all the same triggers, where our addictions first took root. So it’s really having, you know, this, this so called continuum of care without our recovery component, it’s like having a two legged stool and the whole thing just falls over. And then it also kind of contributes to the stigma, because people are going out and having recurrences of us going back into treatment, rinse, repeat, and then you get this, you know, common misperception like, oh, treatment must not really work, because these people need it so many times, you know, these people, which is also very stigmatized, you know, but it’s not behavioral health, mental health, it’s not like getting your appendix out, or it’s one and done. As we know, it’s it’s very complicated. And what the young people themselves said that they needed was more support to continue or complete their education, to, you know, have onramps to career. So what did they want to do before addiction derailed their lives? So they wanted to be a teacher or a business owner, or, you know, an architect or whatever, podcast person, nonprofit executive, you know, how do we get them to that? You know, and then how do you find supportive housing? How do you find a social network that supports your recovery? So all of what we now call like recovery capital components, which is a fancy word that didn’t really exist back in 2010, when these young people were getting started, and we started is really just up group of volunteers, creating these chapters in their local communities started as 10. We’re now about 60 and we’re 19 states nationwide. And over time, we’ve also developed three different life skill curriculum programs to support 14 to 18 year olds, 18 and up, and then criminal justice involved individuals. So we’ve really grown and and expanded we’ve always embraced all pathways to recovery, we’ve always embraced harm reduction, whether somebody’s faith based or medication assisted treatment, or 12-step abstinence space. All are welcome and we also welcome allies. So people like myself who have had family members who’ve been affected by substance use disorder. So that’s how I got into the game.
Wow. Okay, I just, I just learned a lot.
That was a lot. That was a lot of words, so yeah.
Well, I’m good. That was very, very thorough. And so we might be a little similar is I don’t have a personal story of recovery, but had family experiences, some made it through recovery, some didn’t, things like that. But led into a passion for this kind of work. And it looks like young people in recovery was born out of this, this need, right that the, the audience identified for themselves. And I can relate to that being somebody who started throwing drug free parties in college, you know, it was like, This is what I want, and then realize other people did too. And when we got together, great things happened. So I just I love the fact that it is it’s a movement, is what movement.
It is, it is and you know, and that’s what you said is very powerful, too, which is that one person can make a change, and that’s good. And that can influence others and create great things. But when you get more than one person together, and then those people tell friends, and those people, you know, now we have all these tools that we didn’t have, you know, even zoom is such a, I mean, Zoom existed before COVID. But most of us I didn’t anyway, know about it didn’t use it. Now, you know, we can be in people’s living rooms, we can be in people’s phones, like we can be in their cars. And, you know, we used to say that recovery didn’t, doesn’t happen on a screen. But we realized what it has to, it can and it can be very effective. And anything that helps people find community, find others who, you know, have had the same lived experience, that that is incredibly powerful. So yeah, well, we’ll do whatever if it’s like sending up smoke screens, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, whatever, whatever technology we need to use, we’ll do it.
“YPR’s Dynamic Approach: Building Recovery Communities and Hosting Impactful Events”
Okay. Can you help me understand what YPR is and isn’t? And I’ll give you an example. So for you talked about like a continuum of things, young people in recovery. So one might think, Oh, you’re a treatment center or, or your peer support group? Or do you host events? “Can you kind of give us the activities that involve within YPR and what that looks like for its members?”
That’s a great question. So now, so two of the three things you said we do and one of them we don’t, we are not, we do not provide clinical treatment. If you know, if you are experiencing an overdose. It’s not it’s an overdose, somebody in our group would probably be carrying Narcan and be able to revive you. But you know, no, we can’t write a prescription for you to access. Some, you know, buprenorphine or methadone. We are not clinical providers. We can provide warm handoffs to those folks. But we are not a clinical treatment provider. We don’t have beds, we don’t operate bricks and mortar. “What we have are groups of youth and young adults and their allies across the country who implement activities, both in person and online.” And those activities consist of things like pro, what we call pro social events, so fun, drug and alcohol free activities, where youth and young adults who are in recovery or who are, you know, seeking recovery. Maybe they’ve been misusing substances, they might not identify as being or have been diagnosed by a clinician as having a formal substance use disorder. But they may say, “you know, maybe I’d like to try something on a Friday night that doesn’t revolve around drugs and alcohol.” And you know, what we call like the Sober Curious. You know, they’ve been thinking about how drugs and alcohol have maybe impacted their lives in a negative way, and want to learn about substance use disorder, and again, maybe just reduce their use, so are, you know, reduce their amount of consumption, that’s a recovery pathway to so we offer all these opportunities both in person and online, social activities, workshops on how to access resources around education, employment and housing, recovery, messaging, training. So how do you if you’re a person in recovery, how do you talk about your recovery in a way that’s empowering. We taught we have workshops on the neuroscience of substance use disorder, so helping people understand it’s not a lifestyle choice. You know, this isn’t, this is a disorder that, you know, if you looked at a person with, without substance use disorder did a functional MRI of their brain while they were looking at a Budweiser commercial, very different areas of it would be lighting up than if you, you know, my brain might be lighting up looking at the nice Clydesdale horses galloping by their brain would be lighting up looking at the beer those you don’t choose that I don’t get to pick what parts of my brain fire with what stimuli. So teaching people education and now we have these, these different curriculum programs I was talking about that you can access through different partners. So we get grants in different places to implement these nationwide, we’re also working on digitizing them. So hopefully, in the coming months, they will be available through to the touch of a button. Then we also do webinars, all kinds of activities to just educate Empower e newsletters, really, it’s sort of like a media company to talk about recovery and train people about recovery while also providing direct services and you know, advocacy to help improve resources nationwide for youth and young adults who are in recovery and people who want to help support them.
That is cool. Okay, so I’m getting excited, because I heard you talking about events. But so what we do at Vive 18 is kind of like what you’re doing but in the schools. And so we’re on the prevention side. And what’s really awesome is you’re doing the same thing for the recovery community. And like you said, some are just sober, curious. Maybe they’re not in recovery, but it’s open to questions. The first one that will ask you is like, where, what seems to be a commonality in the community, or if there’s an age group and where these groups are being formed, whether it’s like, oh, at a college or at a community group or around a treatment center or anything like that. And then I’d love to hear about some events that you’ve thought were really cool.
Yeah, so some of the chapters started as volunteer-led, and it would people who had maybe found us online or heard about us through a friend, maybe at a 12 step meeting, or you know, a sober home, or recovery home. And they wanted to start their own YPR chapters in their communities. Others, we got grants to start, we have some large grants through the states of California, Kentucky, and Colorado. And that’s really exciting. So we’ll get grants to actually start chapters and programs in different places. So it can be sort of like, ground up, then or top down. But But either way, it really seems to, to work. The model is, you know, pretty simple. It’s get somebody in a community who wants to do this, do this work, and then find people who need this work. And the you know, as I always say, unfortunately, business is booming. I don’t see us running out of people to serve or communities that need the services anytime soon. You know, the good news is, is that we are here and groups like yours are here and that people are starting younger and younger, to recognize that substance misuse. And again, you don’t have to, like medicalize it when you’re talking about a 14 year old, it may look very different than what 40 year old who sees me is dealing with substances. Well, for one thing, one of them can buy substances legally and the other can’t, you know, so there’s that. But the second part of your question, in terms of events, we’re doing a ton of Narcan trainings. We actually have our online, we have a training available in American Sign Language, which I’m really excited about, which I think is very, very cool. We’ve done Oh, around the holidays, we do all kinds of of parties and and we just had there was a day of service in September’s we’re covering month. And we partnered with a wonderful organization called mobilize recovery, which was founded by a former YPR board member Ryan Hampton, who I am lucky enough to count as a dear friend. And YPR joined with hundreds of groups nationwide to do things like Park cleanups and going into schools and shelters for the unhoused are survivors of domestic violence doing activities. So I’m also really proud of some webinars that we’ve done lately that you can also find on our website that focused on subjects like substance use and the foster care system. So looking for lots of different kinds of of people in lots of different kinds of situations, who may be impacted by substance use and you know, the key is obviously t o have that pivot happen before they, you know, get all the way down into hours of formal substance use disorder, if they can, you know, turn turn the corner with their substance use before it becomes so problematic. That is obviously better, than you know, needing those services later on.
“YPR’s Winning Formula: Empowering Chapters with Coaching, Resources, and Growth Opportunities”
Wow, that’s so impressive and the scope of things from, you know, advocacy, add to events that are like community service and helping people to gatherings to information, Narcan training, like, it’s really a scope, a gamut of things that y’all are doing. And it’s all aligned, though, on this mission to be to be helpful to young people in recovery. I’m actually really curious too from your side of things, since you were one of the first people at the company who was an official team member, is you’ve thought you’ve seen this grow, probably from like, a very small amount of chapters to a lot. And I think that’s really inspiring, and that people who are listening to this might be part of a hopefully growing organization. And they’re like, well, that’s great. I want to have multiple schools that I’m working with, or multiple organizations that I’m partnering with, as a leader in the company, what are maybe I’m gonna put you on the spot here. What are some things that maybe you’ve learned about growing an organization like this, that you’ve kind of had to create systems or helpful things as you went? What are some things that you’ve learned about it?
Yeah well, that’s a lot like my key word, which is Partnerships. Again, going back to how we started this conversation, you know, “one person can do some amazing things, but 100 people can really change,” you know, the trajectory of an entire community. And, and it’s, it’s really important to, you know, somebody has a great idea, they want to do something, whether that’s environmental or maybe helping animals or helping seniors or maybe it’s in this space prevention and or recovery. So first of all, I would always recommend, look around and find out who else is doing work that’s similar to yours in your space in your community, whether it’s, you know, if your ideas to just be very community centered, you’re in any town, USA, and it’s such a such state, Well, who else is there? And who else is doing this work? And, you know, can what? How is your idea different from theirs? Maybe if it isn’t that different, you could just volunteer with them and learn more about that organization, maybe you have something that’s a little bit of a twist of what they’re doing, right? They’re already doing this for college aged students, maybe it’s doing it for high school aged students, like, you know, your work. Maybe it’s doing it, you know, with certain specific groups, you know, whether it’s Spanish speakers, or people in bipoc communities, you know, who are historically underserved and have have been the targets of, you know, structural racism over the years. So is it can you bring your work to groups that haven’t? Haven’t heard it before? So who are you serving? Who is already serving people are doing similar things, if not identical? And how is your group can differ? You know, do you need volunteers? Do you need stuff? If that’s like, you want to do something online? Maybe you need technology? Maybe you actually don’t need that many human bodies? Maybe you need technical support and equipment. Maybe you need, you know, maybe your idea something you need in kind gifts. Can you go to companies? Like is it building playgrounds and underserved communities. Is it planting trees for you know, we have hotspots and places where there’s not enough trees and people are suffering from from climate change. You know, so like, what is it that you actually need? Because people all immediately think I need money, I gotta start fundraising. I gotta start writing grants. It’s like, “well, do you need money? You know, maybe you do, probably you do if you want to do this as a job.” But, but maybe you don’t like we really started out on a shoestring budget with one paid staff member, you know, back back in our very first grant was for an Executive Director, but, you know, the volunteers gave their time so they didn’t necessarily need money. Now, of course, today, it’s different and to be equitable, you know, not everybody can afford to volunteer their time, especially if you’re talking about communities that, you know, have been historically marginalized, underpaid, underserved. So you know, yes, it’s there’s a whole debate and conversation. I shouldn’t say debate because I don’t think anybody is actually debating it. It’s pretty much a battle. You know, that people need money to live and work nobody’s debating that. Oh, so you know, but just what you know, and who but who do you need to do the work? And where are you going to find them? You know, so. So it’s a lot of first before you actually start doing the things.
How to Start Making an Impact!
Yeah, I definitely want to highlight that and pick apart a few things that I heard you say. Because I do get that question a lot of like, “how did you start making a change making an impact.” And when you start, it kind of does go to back what you said, which is, we’ll map out exactly what you want to do. Because if you have a passion for something, or you have a story that you want to share, that’s your why, that’s your driving force, and doesn’t actually mean that you need to do exactly what I’m doing or exactly what Ann’s doing at YPR. But if your passion is to do exactly that, then you don’t need to start an organization, you don’t have to go through that headache of filling out nonprofit 501 C3 paperwork, developing a board and pulling your hair out trying to fundraise. And you do that for you. See, that’s her job. That way, you can do the part that is fun for you, which is mobilizing your community, putting on the events or like doing your part in it. And that was something people tried to tell me early, when I started my organization is I didn’t actually want to start my own thing. I wanted to find a YPR and throw events for my friends without drugs and alcohol. But we both weren’t in existence at the time. So it was like, you know, it didn’t happen exactly as perfectly as we would have loved it. But now we’re in adjacent spaces running parallel in the same direction. So we can partner up to do those things. But if I could go back in time, I actually would have searched a little bit harder, and would have done a little more research and found out who can I run with. Because if you aren’t clear on what you want, and your your real outcome and what part you want to play in it, you can start with all this momentum and passion. And then you realize, Wow, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. And then I’m so now I’m going to give up.
And like the paperwork, and all this stuff you’re talking about can be just very time consuming and challenging. And you know, and then you’re running a business. And it’s like, “Wait, I got into this because I wanted to do these things for these people in these places.” And now I’m like looking at a spreadsheet all day. And I have to know the difference between like accrual and cash accounting, it was like, why I didn’t want to do that. Though, yeah, so it’s really true. And like I should say, now at this point, though, if anybody can start out, well, look, if anybody wants to start a YPR chapter as a volunteer, you can go to our website, www.youngpeopleinrecovery.org. And you could say, find a chapter or join a chapter, we also have activities online. So even if you don’t have a chapter near you, you can have, we have three different kinds of all recovery meetings every week. One is just regular all recovery meetings for people of any recovery pathway of any age. And those are of our weekly, we have four members of the called rainbow recovery, which is for members of the LGBTQ plus community also weekly. And then we also have in Spanish. So again, like, if you have a good idea, like, never let me or anybody else get in your way to, you know, push forward that idea. But just again, like you’re saying, do your due diligence, you know, go Google, start Googling, spend an hour Googling, and then talk to people, you know, that’s the other thing that people think, Yeah, everybody’s busy these days, but I have never had an if I’ve emailed or called somebody and just been like, Oh, can we set up a time? You know, again, understanding they’re busy, it may not be for a month, but like, can I just set up an informational interview with you to understand more what you do, I’ve got some ideas, I’m looking to bounce some bounce ideas off somebody, you know, and then what you find is also like, oh, you should talk to so and so or you should talk to so and so and then you should talk to so and so. And you know, and like people want to help every I mean most people want to help I can’t speak for 100% of humanity and most people really will make time to just talk to you and just human to human just ask questions and you know, what am I missing? What did I you know what could go wrong? Like you’ve started a nonprofit I’ve started a nonprofit award What should I know? What do you what did what did you wish you knew then that you don’t you know, and it’d be like, Yeah, well, that Oh, cash versus a CRO accounting thing.
Yeah, it’s so true. And what’s really nice about it is that people they buy into what you’re doing when you ask them so for example, Bull, you’re probably this way too when people ask me for advice. I feel flattered that they think so much of me that they would want my opinion. And of course, I’m like, everybody, I love talking about myself. So, yes, I will, I will help you. Let’s set aside 30 minutes. And let me pour in to you as much as I can ask her and answer as many questions. And then that you’ve listened to them. You won’t even often half of the ask, but the question of, hey, who else should I talk to, they’ll often give you a few more people. And now you just open up this whole network of people who are influential. And it comes from, you know, a new friend that you made, that’s a great way to network versus, “Hey, I’ve started an organization, I have my agenda, Can I use you for it?” If we start this way, in the informational phase, you are going to go 10 times faster, you’re gonna be more focused, more influential and more effective, because you have all these allies and these partners who around you, which is kind of what you’re seeing at the beginning, and was like the tip was build those partnerships. And I love that you said informational interview, because that’s a great way to start partnerships.
Exactly. Yeah, I think there is some, this is not, I didn’t make this up. Somebody said it. And it’s not wasn’t me. But it was right. If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, and like go together. That’s good. And it’s really true. Yeah, that’s really good. Wow. Okay. sad that it was somebody very wise.
Well, selfishly, and I can learn something from you as well, because our, our chapters in our organizations are started, usually by schools. And so they will, you know, adopt our model. And we have a resource like a playbook. We call it the Vive 18 playbook, or in college is the Party.O playbook, how to host events and get sponsors and stuff like that. But it’s all focused on, like, how to throw successful events that are drug free, it’s very narrow. Whereas I feel like your your organization has a larger scope. It’s tackling more things. I’m curious how you’re, how can you support people? What kind of resources or infrastructure. Do you have that helps them succeed once they have the idea to start YPR because maybe I could anew on what you’re.
What to do if You Want to Start a Chapter of YPR.
So you’re never going alone, when you start a YPR chapter. So that we do make, there is a an application process, you have to fill out an online form, we ask that you have at least one other person who wants to volunteer. So like we bake it in, you know, like, trying not to go alone. Because it’s very, you know, it also takes a significant amount of time, we want you to have a leadership team, that we describe what that looks like, you’re assigned a chapter coordinator, who helps you and who connects you with the other. Let’s say you’re a volunteer chapter, you’ll be connected with other volunteer chapters, and you meet on a regular basis via zoom, so that you can all you know, share with your experiences, if somebody has a challenge that they face. You know, this is a very typical one, I planned this event, you know, we were gonna do a holiday party, and I put it on Facebook, and I put up flyers and I talked to all these people, and I handed out, you know, little, little, one pagers and like, nobody came, right. And then they’re super bummed this happens, unfortunately, you know, it’s like, okay, well, where did you have it? Well, I had at this place, and it was far away, and there wasn’t transportation. I was like, and then it was raining, that it’s like, okay, well, you know, that happens. Like, who did you have setup? What other groups did you invite? Who else called like, again, don’t do it alone, go far further together, what other groups were what you know, but we want you to do this ahead of time, so that you don’t have that situation to learn, you know, we’d rather have a decent festival. Let’s start. So like working with other groups. So let’s do it together. Is there a local treatment provider? Is there a recovery home? Is there a collegiate recovery program? Is there recovery at school? You know, are there other groups that might, you know, is there like a church or a, you know, some religious organization that supports people have a human service agency or social service agency, maybe do it there where they already a drug court, where they already have people who are they are, you know, so it’s like, oh, okay, you’ve got checked in with your counselor, hey, you know, look, go downstairs about like, you can get a piece of pizza and like, there’s some fun stuff going on, you can enter to win a raffle or, you know, come down and see what it’s all about, like, you need to enlist helpers to, you know, promote it. And of course, social media is important, but in the end, it’s still like, you know, the question of when you’re invited to something, well, who else is going? Who will I Oh, there you go. So you want to be able to like have it? You know, have it because nobody wants to walk into our room or they don’t know anybody that’s intimidating. So yes thing that’s easy and fun. And that already is like, you know, kind of already something that people are doing anyway, in a place where they already are.
Yeah, oh I, I love that on multiple levels. Because I think that people, they don’t want an invitation to your event, they want a friend. So if you can personally invite someone, or give them an invitation, say, hey, invite, you can have five people come with you. Even if you pretend it’s exclusive, even though you want it to be inclusive, and it is even just pretending that like hey, you’re empowered to bring five people to this exclusive event, you know, quote, you’ll have more people show up because they feel personally invited and special. And they know they have a friend there. So they’re less likely to have that excuse of, I don’t know anyone who’s going stuff like that.
And influence think about, you know, who are like on a modest scale. I’m not saying like, Okay, you’re gonna get Taylor Swift to show up at your’e you know holiday party. I mean, that would be nice. But like, is there a cup like up? If you’re on a college campus? Is there a coach, you know, school teams have like, huge following? Will they put it on if this coach so and so is coming? Just to say welcome, give five minute welcome remarks. Two minute welcome remarks. Cut a ribbon. What about the mayor? What about a city councilor, think about your elected officials, they always want photo ops. And then you give the photo op and put it out on social media. Maybe you give them something somebody a certificate. Can you give an award. Can you gamify it in some way. Can will somebody donate something so you can have a raffle. Like people like to show up because they think they’re gonna win something. I like winning things, you know, I’ve added even if it’s like a $25 gift certificate to an ice cream parlor, like, Hey, I like ice cream, you know, I got that. So just like how can you just thinking about, you know, what else can you do? And is it? Is there some way or even some local person who is insignificant in your community. You know, if there’s some special thing you can offer, if it’s at a high school. If Did they have a uniform? Well, could they do like a dress gown Friday, if you know, the principal’s going to show up, and anybody who comes or anybody who texts this to that number will get entered to be principal for a day or, you know, whatever it is, like a pizza on, you know, in the dining hall or something? Like, is there some way you can make it fun and different and kind of maybe even cheeky, like, you know, whatever it is, you’re gonna, you’re the teachers gonna do something silly, or, you know, what would be fun?
Yeah. People love that. So for I mean, you mentioned a lot of great ideas. And we kind of explored this thing that people often want to be coached on, do you? So they probably get a sort of coach from YPR somebody who checks in with them. And then are they given necessarily like a plan or some or checklist that they use to.
All of the involved? Yes. And then there’s very significant resources on our website that they have access to. It’s called YPR teams, we have something called YPR Academy, that is trainings on every kind of everything from how to make good social media templates to how to do advocacy and public policy. I did one on fundraising. We did one on Excel, like, joking aside about spreadsheets. It is the way the world works, you know, but not everybody learned excel in school. You know, if you want to make a budget, what are the parts of a budget. How do you read financial documents like those, we want to, we want this group of chapter leads and volunteers to then go off in the world and be the next generation of recovery leaders. And we already have had many of them do exactly that. And we couldn’t be prouder of them. But we wouldn’t be doing our job if you came out with the same information that you came in with. Our idea is to just give you options, give you resources, give you tools, give you toolkits, give you every kind of we don’t want you to have to reinvent the wheel. Makes no sense. It’s a waste of your time. So we won’t do that. And we don’t want you to have to do that. You know, even like Canva as a template, you know, why should you have to make it. I’m not a graphic designer, you know, I’m not really like artsy. You know, what me designing a one pager we, you know, for every possible thing you could need. So, you know, use those, it’s much easier and sorry, no branding on that.
I love that. That’s really cool. And I think for the people listening, that’s something we can all do for our organization. Because we’re trying to spread the message we’re trying to do prevention or, or in in the recovery space, we’re all running the parallel direction. And what I just learned from you is that you can have, you can have a bank of information that people can use, and you also have the personal accountability of a coach or somebody who’s there, who’s going to check in with you. And I love what you said, which is that the person should be different when they walk out from when they walked in, is your number one objection is to help them grow. And especially for you know, myself and the people listening that work with youth, is we always have to remember that the development of the students is actually more important than the outcome, because the event can be a total failure. But that could be an amazing learning experience. The time when, when no one shows up to your event.
And you think how did this happen. I thought this was going to be so great. Well, like what? Oh, I bet you are going to do that. Oh, oh, you didn’t put the Oh, you did with the flyer? Oh, well, you know, then you realize like, oh, that’s why nobody came because nobody knew about it. Because we didn’t have clear communications. We didn’t have clear roles. We didn’t have like a job description of what each person even if the volunteers he still want a job description, what’s the person who’s going to do like the marketing and communications like, that means doing like seven social media posts, or like, literally every day like liking this or sharing that. Or, you know, I like being really specific, even when I’m micromanaging. Like sometimes you really just have to be extremely specific. Because you have to remember, especially working with young people, they may have never done anything like this before. That’s, that’s okay, that’s fine. But just as long as they walk away, understanding what it is you’re asking them to do, because it’s not faired, being a mind reader is not part of the job description to be a YPR you know, volunteer or chapter lead or staff member that if you, you know, if you are Hey, more power to you. Like, you can’t assume anybody knows exactly what you need, unless you told them very specifically.
“Navigating Youth Drug Prevention: Insights and Guidance”
Yeah, I love doing that thing when I teach students about meetings is anything that you say you’re going to do, like there’s the event plan, there’s the to do list, and on every to do goes one person’s name, and one date. And as long as you have that, and they’ve written it down, then you can have accountability. But it’s kind of like the 911, someone call 911. And no one calls is you have to have the individual assigned for it to create accountability. And like you said, people might not have been trained on that, or when you’re starting out, you don’t think about those things until you have that failure. So we can be helpful in our resources to like train people on that, that kind of stuff. So I’ve, it’s been great. I’ve learned a lot myself. And I bet people that are listening, have learned a lot, and how they can emulate just the amazing infrastructure and the passion for what you’re doing. It can translate into what they’re doing. And if they don’t have a YPR Chapter, knowing that they can actually start with someone. And if you’re like me, if you’re in prevention, oftentimes your best advocates come from the recovery world, and they’re looking for ways to get involved. And so knowing that YPR exists, and that’s a need, they can help fill, and start one of those chapters is really, really cool. So let’s end on this would you have one piece of guidance, just maybe one tip or thought that’s on your heart or your mind to share with people who are in the drug prevention field? And then please tell us before we go, how they can keep in touch with you, or where they should connect with you online.
Some Tips for People in Prevention
Okay so one tip for people in the prevention space. That’s a tough one. One right now, haha. Um, I would just say that it’s really important not to stigmatize especially young people who are involved with substance use, and they are not bad, they are not dumb, they are not wrong. They are not, you know, self destructive. In fact, they are probably using coping the best coping mechanism that they have at the time, and to recognize that people pick up drugs and alcohol for a variety of reasons. And that typically, if you have somebody especially a young person who is misusing substances, there’s a lot of other things that they need, that are going to have to be lined up before they are able to put down the substances. Because if those needs aren’t being fulfilled, they are going to get the thing and take the thing that at least in the short run. It might be making them feel better. It might also be making them feel worse. But that that’s the coping strategy that they have, unless you are going to replace the coping strategy that they have, with better, healthier, more effective, more accessible, more sustainable ones. They’re gonna just keep doing what they’re doing. And that’s not stupid or wrong. That’s actually extremely rational. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, people as being rational, not being dumb just because they’re young or that they don’t know. Oh, you don’t know what you really want or need you’re so young. It’s like, Exactly. What and they’re probably telling you and you’re not listening.
Wow. Thank you for saying that.
Right. Yeah. Thank you for the saying Sure. Yeah. Yeah, you’re not listening. “The problem is not with them. The problem is with you.” So that I would like to say all to all the young people, right, it’s, it’s really not you, it’s them. So, so there’s that in terms of how to get in touch with me. Like my email address, whatever.
Like website, anybody that wants to start a chapter I know, you mentioned the website, any social media handles?
Yeah, we have Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Tiktok, yes, we want to push our Tiktok, if anybody wants to volunteer and as you know, interested in something that we don’t offer, but they think would be helpful if they are young person in recovery, and they want to get involved. We info at youngpeopleinrecovery.org is our generic email, somebody actually really does look at that and read that. And, you know, you can just hit me up directly, like on LinkedIn is the best way for me, but you know, because I’m old. But then we also have, I would like to say, a really, really expensive resource section on our website. It’s literally on our website is called Resources and you can drop down for all different kinds of things. And whether you’re for parents, whether it’s for young people, whether it’s mental health, substance use parenting, all different kinds of, of different things that people need, harm reduction, we have a lot of toolkits. Also, we have resources, we have a Spanish language website, which you can just press a button. We have a lot of different resources, also available in Spanish. So I want to, we want to make sure that things are accessible to people. And yeah, just appreciate the opportunity to tell you more about YPR you can tell I’m really passionate about it and I love what you do, and I love how you do it. So anyway, we can collaborate with the awesome in the future as well.
And that is so thank you, thank you so much. It’s awesome work. And for everyone listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Party Talk Podcast, where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention, keep doing the amazing work that you’re doing. Reach out to Ann, reach out to YPR and see how they can help you on your journey because we are going to go so much further running together than we would alone. So have a wonderful week and we’ll see you next Monday for another episode.
