The Role of Operation Parent

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White with Vive 18, and today we’ve got a new guest, a seasoned parent, which is another way of saying a blessed grandparent, and he’s the executive director of Operation Parent, Darrell Braemer. He’s been married for 25 years to his wife, Susan. He’s a proud dad of three amazing adult children all married to amazing spouses and has four grandkids, two more on the way. Congrats. Yeah. He is more passionate now than ever to come alongside parents and caregivers that are right in the middle of raising their kids. As someone coming up on one year as the executive director at Operation Parent, he has the daily privilege of working alongside an amazing team of folks who are laser focused on equipping parents on the latest trends and providing encouraging advice on how to have the conversations with their kids. Having spent the last 20 years volunteering in children and family ministries in different capacities, he’s seen and sees the challenges kids face, but he also sees a powerful answer to those challenges in engaged parents, grandparents, and caregivers. Dang, I love your intro, Darrell. Thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Yeah. So, I mean, you’re a family man. We get that. That’s awesome. Tell us a little bit about where you’re from and then what got you into the role as executive director of Operation Parent.

Darrell’s Journey to Operation Parent

Yeah, cool. So right here in Louisville, Kentucky. So we’re just just north of Louisville, born and raised, never left. And, you know, again, have three, three adult kids. And I was I grew up in the corporate world. So I like to say my professional background and my passion background have finally combined. But I agree. I was an IT guy, an IT guy for 32 years at an organization here based out of Louisville. you know, it was only to me, it was only a God given answered prayer in that I landed where I’m at today. After 32 years being in the IT world, you know, people were saying, hey, are you going to retire? I’m like, man, I’m not retiring, I’m rewiring because I just got too much energy. And for me, the passion background talked about there in the intro where it was, you know, in the children’s ministry, family ministry, men’s ministry. I did a lot of volunteer work. So outside of the IT space, I did a lot of volunteer work. And what I saw at our church, our local church, is that in the children’s ministry, I was the interim children’s pastor for a little while, but what I saw is all kinds of different families coming in.

Families who, know, kid, were having troubles with their kiddos, families who they were just dropping their kiddos off for a babysitting service, families who were just engaged with their kid. You see all kinds and your heart breaks in that space. And I knew Jean Chum, the founder of Operation Parent from way back, her youngest and my youngest actually played basketball together. But when they approached me, they said, hey, are you going to be doing now? I said, man, I’m just looking for something that’s just more of a purpose, more of, and they said, well, we’ve got an idea for you. so lo and behold, that was November a year plus ago. And February of last year is when I started at Operation Parents. like I said, the passion that I’ve had for kids, to help them be successful, not in a business world, but just to be successful in life. I mean, this was the perfect fit with Operation Parent.

That’s really cool. I’m glad that we got to meet you at CADCA at the last conference and we’ve been seeing Operation Paranaray and we always want to go to the table and talk to them because I mean, I just think they’re the most kind and enthusiastic and generous people. And speaking as someone who follows Christ is like, I just sense it from y’all staff and everybody in the organization. And it shows a lot of why you’re doing the incredible work that you’re doing and that you’re mission first, but you’re also really smart and sustainable. And so I really admire it. Like at Vive 18, I’m a fan of OP and I want to learn as much as I can about how y’all do things because we want to follow in your footsteps to equip youth the same way that you equip parents. And I’m excited that our listeners today get to hear a little bit more because as I travel the country and do youth events around prevention and mental health. I would say at least half the time, Operation Parent gets brought up and we both high five each other and know, like cheer like, you know them too. So it’s really cool. It just shows, it shows how much effort you’re putting in, not only to the products, but making sure that everybody knows about it. So in that vein, if someone maybe hasn’t heard of Operation Parent before, can you just give us an overview of how you help people in the field of drug prevention.

Understanding Teen Challenges

Yeah, and you know, it started, so Operation Parent started just about 19 years ago. And to your point, you know, the kindness, I mean, I’ve known Jean, Jean Shum, the founder for, like I said, for that for that long and more. But just, you know, what started this whole thing is, and she’ll tell you this story herself. You know, she was struggling. She had five kiddos of her own, a lot of teenagers there, and they were just struggling with just different things. And she knew she had to make some tough choices and tough decisions as a parent. I mean, we were just at an event the other day and she was just talking about kind of this story a little bit. And she’s like, she thought everything was going good. Everybody seemed to be happy. And the next thing you know, everything went off the rails. But what she realized is after some tough discussions and tough decisions that her and her husband had to make, that she there’s gotta be other people going through this. And as a parent, she just wanted, so that’s how it started out. She just went to the local school here in the county we’re in and said, hey, what are students struggling with? And was surprised. She joked the other day, she said something about, when somebody said something about cutting, she thought they meant cutting class. So it was just like things, just kind of a little bit of things seem to be going good, but they really weren’t going good. just realizing then, man, there’s a lot of things going on out there that, you know, she wasn’t aware of, and it still happens today. If we’re not staying up on, you know, on top of it, there’s things that are happening, new things every single day. So she went to the school, got some information, and just started bringing parents together and just talking about it. Because a lot of times, and I don’t know about you, you don’t have any kiddos yet, right? Right, nope.

But just as a parent, a lot of times when you have those family issues, you just kind of want to take them and just, okay, I got you. But you really, many times, just the mantra, maybe as a guy, you just don’t reach out for help as much as we should. And we all know that there is a lot of help out there and a lot of caring people. So Jean was passionate enough to open herself up and open her story up. And that got people engaged once you’re vulnerable and you’re transparent to somebody, gonna reciprocate that many times over. So having that relationship and that relationship building is how it all started. And then just to expand it outside of the schools, like, we need to help other parents who maybe aren’t in this school system. So they created some pamphlets and then it grew into the resources that we have today over time, which are, you handbooks and webinars, you know, that we provide to people across the nation today. So started out just with a passionate parent. And that has not ended. I mean, I was actually just met with her this morning. She’s retired from Operation Parent, but is on our board and her passion is still so strong. I just get pumped up when I, you know, when I get to talk to Jean, because that passion remains with her as well as everybody on the team. And like you said we’ve seen you at conferences. I love you all’s passion. I love you all’s energy and excitement, but we have the same just in the parent realm.

The Importance of Parental Awareness

Yeah, that’s so cool. And you had mentioned, so you’ll have the handbooks, you’ll have the webinars. And what’s cool too is you could go to your website right now and I’ll ask you at the end of the episode to tell us where to go to take advantage of all that stuff because it’s a wealth of knowledge. You all have doctors and PhDs and everybody, the smartest people doing this work have been on your webinars sharing all these cool tips.

And it’s just sitting there waiting for everybody to learn from. But if you could give us some insights, Darrell, because you are learning so much about parents and the challenges that teens are facing today, what are some things you’re learning about that teens are struggling with that maybe parents don’t always know about or they’re not caught up yet because they’re not doing all the research that you all are doing What are some current trends or things that you’re noticing?

Yeah, I think you’ve hit on them on prior episodes as well. know, vaping is one that, you know, we actually had a fundraising, we were at a fundraising golf scramble and we had this little box of almost like what you would see a kid taken into school, like with markers and everything in there. And we had the golfers who were coming by and we said, hey, open this, but tell us what doesn’t belong here. And many of them could not tell us. And basically, you know, it was a marker you know, it was a vape that looked like a marker, you know, and it’s just, they were like, whoa, you got to be kidding me, you know? And even as my kids were growing up and there was things, you know, it wasn’t as, I guess, rampant, crazy as it is today, but, you know, I kind of looked at it as my ABCs. It’s like, know, have to be, as a parent, you have to be aware, you know, just, and how do you become aware?

Creating Connections with Teens

And that’s why, Operation parent we try to be that one-stop shop where you can go and say okay. Here’s here’s all the the top things I guess you know there’s there’s many more but here’s the top things and just educate educate parents on that and do the handbooks and through the webinars but the biggest thing is just to be aware and just to be educated through you know you become aware about being educated and you know, just a little bit of research, but I know it can be overwhelming for parents to be able to say, got to do this site, this, you know, so that’s why we try to bring it together. And then you just got to, you know, honestly, again, it goes back to my faith, but you got to believe as a parent, your roles and rights, rights and responsibilities, you know, you’ve got to, I’ve got a, I’ve got a father in heaven who is driving me to be the best parent I can be, right?

And I’m not there to be my kids’ friends. As adults, I’m much more of their friend now than was when they were teenagers. But you just got to believe that you have a responsibility as a parent to be able to do that. And then you create a plan, right? mean, so that C is that create a plan of what you’re going to do to connect with your kids, to communicate with your kids. I’ve got a friend of mine who, his son, it’s just a neat story. His son was about the same age as my youngest daughter. And during his teen years, he was just kind of, he could see he was kind of drifting off and he needed to connect with his son. So, you know, before anything really bad could have happened. his son wanted to rebuild like an engine in a truck that he had bought. he’s like, rebuild a carburetor. I don’t know how to rebuild a carburetor.

And my buddy didn’t either. But as a parent, you know what he did? He went out there and you two is your friend, right? So, you know, you can go out there. so he and his son connected over the next several months because he went out there and learned how to rebuild a carburetor. So he created a plan and then he took action on that plan. So I just I love that story because I’m like, man, that’s that’s and it’s a simple thing, right? It’s you don’t have to be.

You just got to be there. got to believe that you’re you as a parent, make a difference. You’re the first line of defense. You’re the biggest influencer, should be the biggest influencer in your in your kid’s life. And as you do that, I just I just love that that what he did there because he took the time and became, you know, a part of his son’s life and just a very simple but, you know, a way that would resonate with the sun as well.

Building Connections Through Shared Activities

Yeah, and I think that’s so important because people will ask, like people are Googling right now, how to talk to my kids about drugs and alcohol, how to talk them about vaping, about nicotine pouches, like whatever it would be about cutting and suicide. And if you don’t have the time with them, that conversation either won’t happen or it’s going to feel forced. And then like your kid isn’t really used to talking to you like that. So what I love that you just mentioned is that parent just bought a month worth of time with their kid in a way where they’re working on something together and there’s so many opportunities to share because they’re not having this like eye locking across from the moment tension. It’s like, no, we’re doing something together side by side. That’s when you find those moments to be vulnerable and to share stories and connect. And it doesn’t feel forced or awkward, but you kind of have to.

You have to find that time, whether it’s in the car or on a project. And that I got to text my dad now because I was like, growing up, he would always, if I was getting involved in something, it’s like, Jake’s on the golf team. I’m going to go pull out my golf clubs from the garage. Like, or he’s getting into, like shooting archery. I’m going to law if he’s getting a bow, I’m getting a bow.

Yeah. yeah, my son loves soccer. He played soccer. I’m going to go be a soccer coach until he realized I didn’t know what I was doing, but he knew I tried. Yeah, to that point, though, I mean, it is those, you know, there’s just not just that one conversation you have or every the period. It’s a consistent and it’s the conversations, you know, it’s you’re building the relationship. And I know everybody. I’ve got a relationship with my kid.

Transforming Taboo Topics into Open Conversations

Well right, there’s a moment where those taboo topics, you want to turn those into terrific topics. You can just talk about them anywhere in any time. And it’s not like, oh, he’s talking about drugs or he’s talking about alcohol. don’t usually just make those in the everyday conversation while you’re doing the everyday everything else, right? And I think that’s the beauty of that ABC mentality. And you just got to adapt.

And I think that’s as a parent, you know, you can create a plan, but, you God always has a sense of humor when we say, here’s our plan, when those plans change, you just got to be able to adapt to that and look to him as your guide and say, okay, what do I do here? And that’s what I think as a parent, we just need those guides whether that’s other, you know, fellow parents, whether it’s your faith, you you’ve got to be able to continue to adapt, continue to be able to react to the situations that life, you know, life gives you. And it’s going to come, there going to be some curve balls for sure, but the more you can practice those curve balls and how to catch or how to hit them, then that’s the idea, right, as a parent.

The Role of Parents in Substance Prevention

That’s cool. I love that. I love that. And I can’t say this enough. I probably say this every episode or close, but I don’t think we can overdo it. Parents and caring adults are one of the top protective factors of why a student would choose not to use a substance or not to self-harm. And so there’s always some people that just think, I can’t make a difference and I’m here to tell you that the science tells us otherwise and being a guy of faith too, the Bible, our Creator says otherwise too.

Yeah, I mean, you know what I love about that is like, you know, it’s like the parents who like are kind of lost and like, man, what do I do? You know what? You know, I’m not going to make a difference. Man, they you do make a difference and it really just starts and it’s not like it’s not like rocket science. It just starts with relationship and relationships start with communication and the more you do that with your kids and you know you know no parent is perfect. The parent handbook that we have doesn’t make you a perfect parent but it equips you to be an involved parent, a parent who knows, the child knows that, hey, my parents care about me, they’re not just gonna come in and do the standard, have the talk or have a talk, family meetings, those shouldn’t be happening constantly.

Right. Well, this would be helpful. So, Darryl, let’s say, so I have one of your handbooks. So like I’m reading it and I’m getting updated on some of the trends that are going on, like these Zen pouches with nicotine and stuff, or maybe other things like cutting. And what I think is so valuable is that now that I’m learning about it, I have an opportunity to share that. But if I didn’t know it, of course, I can’t share it. I have no option of doing that.

My first instinct, of course, is saying, hey, I learned something today. I read about this thing, Zen pouches, right? I’m talking with my student. Have you seen those around? Like, just being curious allows a conversation to start. But I’m wondering, apart from that, like, that was just my first inclination. When you’re starting conversations, like you said, relationship is important. Assuming that we have a good relationship, we’re working on a project and we want to talk to our student and be really intentional on bringing that up. What are some ways that you like to start those conversations or you’d recommend ways to introduce a topic?

Starting Difficult Conversations with Vulnerability

You know, I think being vulnerable first and foremost is the way to someone to, know, speaking for men, you know, especially, think, you know, we can talk, we’re good at talking about the sports, we’re good at talking about the weather, but when it really gets into, you know, the real topics of life and your kids’ life, if I’m gonna go talk to a parent and I see them struggling, you know, First of all, want to let them, it’s a hopeful message. It’s not a, you’ve messed up. It’s, know, each day is a new day and, you know, prevention is not a one and done type thing, right? It’s a continual conversation, but the more I’m vulnerable and the more that I can, you know, provide my life story, my backstory to someone, I think that is a game changer.

Because when people feel that they’re more willing to open up, they’re more willing to talk. And the same with your kids, right? I mean, when you’re talking to your kids, know, a lot of parents want to have that, you know, as the kids are very young, they idolize you. It’s my dad, my dad’s, you know, he’s the best. He can’t do no wrong. Until you, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right. Until they either see it or you admit it.

My dad can beat up your dad, you know that that hey, I don’t know what to do here. I messed up here apologizing to your kids. You know when when you do lose your temper or you do, you know mess up and I think the more you can be show your vulnerable side. I mean, it’s it’s just amazing how how people open up and I see that with my three kids. I’ve got a son and two daughters and my son is a pastor. My my daughters are teachers.

And it’s, they’re all focused on either men, my son with the men’s ministry and my daughter’s with students in elementary school and middle school. And just seeing how they relate, it’s just, it was a proud moment for dad, of course, but just because they’re real, they’re not, know, they don’t put themselves up here, they put them at the same level and just to be able to have those conversations and just hearing some of the stories that my daughter comes home with in middle school and just the things that these kids are going through, it’s heartbreaking. But she is kind of that safe place to be able to, somebody can confide in and because she’s relatable. And I think that’s number one, is you just gotta be not looking down, not judging, but just being real.

Yeah, that’s such a good lesson. And what I love is that it’s really helpful on one-on-one, right? If you’re vulnerable and realizing that, your kid might be looking at you as if you always had everything figured out because you’re in control now and you’re the adult leader of the family. But sharing that you had messed up, that you’re not perfect would make them or anybody, right? More comfortable to say, yeah, I did too and I need help.

Creating a Safe Space for Open Dialogue

And yeah, doesn’t everyone want that? Like we would expect that kind of vulnerability or desire it instead of pretending our way. And I think that’s a lot of parents fear, right? Is I had no idea what was going on. And then one day something drastic happened and I felt like I didn’t know my kid anymore. that’s like, yeah, that would be worst case scenario, but those what I’m hearing from you is you have an opportunity, no matter who you are, if you’re a parent, caregiver, caring adult, to let them know you don’t have it all together, you still make mistakes, and at one point you’re probably in a situation like they were, so they’re more comfortable to ask for help when they need it.

Well, you you think about it like my daughter in school, when somebody messes up, somebody, she say, hey, you’re going to stay up for class. You dread that. Or if your if your own child messes up, hey, we’re going to have a talk, you know, or we need to talk about this, how you react to that. I mean, it’s like that that opportunity that you have there, you could come down on them. There’s consequences, yes, to everything. But it’s how you deliver those consequences and how you, you know, you could be a fearful, you know, a fear, you know, focused person and just you know come down on them hard but that’s not doing anybody any good. Yes there are consequences but how you love them through that, how you talk to them through that and how you’re vulnerable and recognize hey they messed up but everybody messes up nobody’s perfect. Yeah there’s consequences but you know how you show the love you know as a parent or as it you know teacher-student type thing, that makes all the difference.

Yeah. And it went back to what you said at the beginning of having like, as a parent, that’s your number one job and you, set boundaries and you hold students like your kids accountable. And I think that if, if that doesn’t happen, it becomes more difficult when something happens. It’s like, well, wait, why am I getting grounded? But if you set a clear culture of your family, the boundaries and the expectations that you have, it does, it’s more kind when you introduce some sort of punishment or accountability. It’s like, hey, we have a deal as a family that we operate this way and you went outside of that. the consequences as we outlined as like, this happens. I’m sorry. I wish that that didn’t happen, but it did. And you made that decision or whatever it was. Like, I don’t know, maybe you don’t have to be the bad person anymore in a way. You’re like, hey, this is our operation. Let’s learn from it.

The Importance of Community Support for Parents

Yeah, you know, to me also, I think one of the biggest things I’ve tried to do, and we talked about a little bit earlier, is like, you know, don’t do this alone, right? You know, because I, you know, you may be a single parent, but you may be married, you know, as me as my wife, I was always, I come home from work and she said, hey, this happened, you know, and I’m like, okay you know, I’m coming from fix it mode. I’m coming home and I’m going to fix it. And I’ll say, well, this, this, this. And she’s like, that’s a little harsh. So, but even if, even if you’re a single parent, you can still go to your, you know, to your, to your friends and say, Hey, this happened. This is what I’m thinking. You don’t be afraid. You don’t have to do it alone. and then that’s the biggest thing is cause people try to, and guys especially try to bring it, you know, to themselves and, know, I’ve got this and he’s got this and he puts people in your life to be able to help you through life. And whether that’s a spouse, a friend or whatever, it’s just to encourage parents, you are not alone. And that’s probably the biggest message we want people to hear, that there’s hope out there and there are people out there, friends, family, whoever that can help you through these struggles that everybody’s, you know, everyone’s going through.

Yeah, that’s huge. That’s huge. Just to know that you don’t have to do that alone. So moving towards Operation Parent and how you help schools and coalitions and things like that, what are some ways that schools and coalitions have used your program or services or anything to do their thing better? What are some ideas that they could take away or learn from Operation Parent?

Engaging Schools and Communities in Prevention

Yeah, I think one of the things that we have is one of our resources is called TNT. It’s called Trends in Training. that is a, we have a of a toolkit that kind of goes along with it. It gives you a start to finish on how to do this. But in a nutshell, what that is, is it’s an opportunity to have fun while learning at the same time. And I know you’re big on that. You can have fun while you’re still learning drug facts, stroke facts and refusal skills. So we just held an event here recently for our Oldham County schools in our school system here. And we had inflatables, free food, but we had two sections kind of, had an indoor outdoor both and the kids were outside learning or doing these inflatables and whatnot, having the free food and ice cream and whatnot. But as they’re in line for these inflatables or whatever it may be, there’s these posters around that have drug facts and refusal skills. And if they memorize those and go to a table, and we call it the memorization station, you tell them that, they put your name in, you get them put in for a prize. So at the end of the day, we have prizes. So they’re having fun, but they’re also learning these things. if there’s a decent prize, they’re going to go after, right? So they’re going to learn these things. Well, at the same time, we had our state’s attorney general come talk to the parents and was talking about the opioid crisis and whatnot. So the parents were inside learning while the kids were outside, also learning but having a lot of fun. And then at the end, we also had testimonials from a parent and then a youth, young adult who were, that was their daughter talking to the youth at the end. So it was just very engaging.

And then we had a big color blast at the end. You know, just, you know, had a lot, had a lot of fun, but those are just fun. You know, that’s a big event, of course, but we were just talking to a local school system here in the next county over this week, giving them ideas. This can be a small, you can do your hallway events or, hallway, you know, you can just during red ribbon week or whatever it may be, you can make these as big or as small as you want and just.

We have these posters that kind of just pop up there. if you offer a prize or offer something for a young student, they’re going to learn that. it’s just, there’s those opportunities just to make it fun and engaging. This one, the parents had fun too, because we had some parents out there getting some, the color chalk all over them as well. But it was a three hour event and just a great way.

What we do is in Eastern Kentucky, we work with Operation Unite down there, which is a, you’ve probably heard of them as well. They’re a group that funds and works with a lot of DFCs across the state, at least the Eastern part of the state. And they went and got a bunch of these toolkits and they’re giving them out to the different school systems. School systems can come together and have a bigger community event.

So there’s just so many different ways we’ve seen from the handbooks, from our handbooks, we’ve seen parents take them. They’ve told us just different testimonies where they’ll be in, if you’re watching your kids football practice, well, that’s a great, great way to engage parents because everybody’s, it’s a captive audience. So you parents can just, you know, circle up in a, in, in that’s what this lady did. She was just, you know, there to talk to parents.

She was struggling herself. Why not get some insights from other people as well? So anywhere you are, there’s, I mean, if you look around, there’s going to be somebody struggling. And I guarantee there’s a parent that’s struggling or a parent that’s dealing with something. And the more you can just reach out to them in those different scenarios, whether that’s a football practice or a basketball game or whatever it may be.

There’s just a myriad of options. We’ve seen people do like dinners, just while their kids are at a dance, they’ll go to a dinner and share stories that way too. So it doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t have to be complex. It can be just simple conversation. And the handbook kind of gives you a guide to be able to do that like that.

I like that idea of getting parents engaged when their kids are doing something because that is often a tough part is like, how do we get parents to attend something? Well, maybe they’re already attending the basketball or the football game or something like that and you can coordinate alongside it or they’re going, I love the one you just said too, like, the students are at a school dance. What are you gonna do?

Like, let’s go out to dinner and make this an intentional time to learn about how to support our students better. Those are really good. You know, and when you deal with, so, you know, different school systems, different parts of the state, different parts of the country, even different schools in the same county, you’re gonna have different parent engagement when it comes to the schools. I was talking to the superintendent of the school system here recently and they were saying, you know, they have trouble getting their parents on the premise. And that’s when we were just brainstorming what take the event off premise. You can get a local park, right? And those are, you can just have this event and just make it fun there. But for whatever reason, they were having trouble to get parents into the schools, into the actual school building itself. And so they took it to the park and had more of a community event. And that way it was just like, wasn’t, didn’t even feel like a school function, but yet it was.

Resources and Tools for Parents and Educators

Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. Well, let’s wrap up with this. If people want to check out Operation Parent, all the great resources you have, and check out too the stuff that they can use at their school or coalition or events, where can they go to find out all about that?

Yeah, so if you go to OperationParent.org, it has everything you need right there. So basically it describes all of our different resources. So our three main resources are handbooks. And those handbooks are for what we call parent handbooks. The handbooks are for that we have two kind of versions of those. We have a middle and high school version for parents and we have an elementary version for parents. the elementary version kind of talks about the same topics, but in a little bit more softer language and focus on some of the more things that elementary kids are having in the middle high school handbooks. Those are more still very hopeful message and you’ve seen the handbooks, you know, they’re very hopeful, but just, you know, tackling some of the tougher topics as well that you start to get to in middle and high school. And those are in Spanish as well. And we also have a faith based version as well. So we have a lot of biblical backing to what we’re saying there in the handbooks.

And then we have our webinars. So encourage people to their free monthly webinars, just diving in deeper to the topics that we have in our handbooks. Just it’s just so we were just talking. It’s had a webinar last week or earlier this week, actually. And it was talking about, you know, athletes, athletes and the the you know, the boost, the energy drinks and things like that. Just talking, just making parents aware in that manner, something that’s simple but just very engaging. we dive in deeper into the topics and then we have our TNT resource out there. But that’s the trends in training toolkit that we provide to just be able to host these events. And again, small, large gives them the step-by-step. I have a video out there that kind of shows it in action type thing as well. So yeah, everything is right there on the website, OperationParent.org. Come check us out. Any questions they’re at OperationParent.org. So it’s easy to get a hold of. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, for everyone listening, go check it out. I actually have a webinar with Dr. Crystal Collier. That was super fun. Yeah. He was awesome, folks. Go check it out. was in December. He was amazing.

Yeah, you can see that. So if you like the podcast and you want to learn more, go, go to operationparent.org right now and just type in Jake White or Dr. Crystal and we’ll pop up. Um, that was super fun. I think there was like a thousand people on that. I know your books and your resources are being used all across the country because they’re top notch. Um, so definitely go check it out. I, I, I, as someone who has a bunch of guests on the show, like I can say I’ve used this. Um, so I really would recommend if you haven’t checked it out, go over there, see what they’re all about, contact Darryl if you need anything. And he has an incredible team over there that are just super supportive. So if you have questions about best practices or what people are doing, just call them as a resource because they’re doing this incredible work and engaging parents. And I know that’s a big point of struggle is how do we get them engaged? And that’s their number one thing.

Amazing why not pick their brains on it? So I hope that y’all enjoyed this episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour and we’ll see you next Monday for the next one.