“Preventing Substance Abuse and Empowering Youth: A Conversation with Joe Tracey”
[00:00:04] Jake White: Welcome back everyone to another episode of Party Talk where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. Today, I’m sitting down with Joe Tracey. And this guy leads a coalition out here in Buckeye, Arizona. It’s on the outskirts of the Phoenix area. And it comes with its own unique challenges and its own unique opportunities. And what I’ve seen this guy do over the last year of knowing him has been really cool. But his organization actually has a long history too. That’s fascinating. So I’m really excited to share all the great stuff that he’s doing, and how it can potentially inspire you to do more in your community. So Joe, welcome to the show, man.
[00:00:42] Joe Tracey: Thanks, Jake. Appreciate it, man.
[00:00:45] Jake White: Absolutely. Well, just to dive right in Joe, tell us a little bit about your role, your organization and then dive into kind of what you do day to day?
[00:00:57] Joe Tracey: We have basically two organizations, we have the “Wail West Coalition”, which is our Prevention Coalition here in Buckeye, Arizona. And just like you received before, it’s out in the west part of the Phoenix area. And that’s why we’re called “Way Out West”, because we’re literally the last stop until you get to California. So WOW is the abbreviation for that. So we also have what’s called “Youth4Youth”. And that is really more the nuts and bolts of everything, because that engages the youth and everything that we do. And basically, we go into schools, and our goal is to put together a team of kids that want to make a difference in our school at its core, that’s what it is. Now, there’s a lot of other parts to go into that. But really, we’re looking we look for kids to teach and leadership success skills, give them the tools that they need to go out in and make a difference in their school. And then, as far as my role, it’s really hard to say, I kind of do it all. I have to do some of the business stuff, I got to do all the reporting. I like being in front of kids, with the kids and that’s where the funds at. And now coalition wise, we’re out in the community, we’re giving people information as far as maybe some new drug trends are, some tips for parents but that’s just part of it. Then we get to do the work the kids and that’s where I really love and we got a few different things that we work on. One of them is a resiliency program. It’s a nine week program that we go in, and we teach kids, not only don’t do drugs, but why do you do the drugs or why would you turn to that? So that’s a big part of that is giving kids tools that they need to be successful. And that’s really, I love going in there working with the kids, and then putting together the team of kids that are going to make that difference that’s where the magic happens. Because kids, even though you and I can go in there and talk to kids and go, “Oh, it’s a cool guy, this or that.” If they get a lesson from one of their peers, all of a sudden, it’s actually real and it makes sense. So that’s the great thing is of the “Youth4Youth” program really, now it’s a “Peer-Led” program.
[00:03:44] Jake White: That’s well said. And I’d see it the difference of when we say it, we talk about social norms. When a student says it, that’s social proof. That’s something we’re like, “Will you talk about people making good decisions, or you talk about all these things we can do?” But when I see one of my friends doing it, that’s proof of what you told me further evidence and it’s more believable now. So that’s really cool. How did you get into this type of work or the role you’re in now?
[00:04:14] Joe Tracey: Like everybody else in this type of work. I was born just saying this is what I want to do.
[00:04:25] Jake White: If that were the case, man.
[00:04:26] Joe Tracey: So I really got a long story with that and the “Youth4Youth” component actually started back in 1999. So there was an event that happened April 20th 1999. That is surprisingly enough when I asked kids what happened that day. There’s always somebody that knows the answer and that was with Columbine him. And as we know, that was the first mass school shooting. And my dad was as an educator at the time, and I was a month away from graduating high school. So just to date myself a little bit, but I graduated, May 19th or something in 1999, but my dad was a teacher. And after this happen, the superintendent of the district was saying, we need to come up with a plan. So this type of things don’t happen at our school. So they came up with all these safety evacuation plans and everything, but they still thought something was missing it. And finally, my dad was like, “The kids need to be a part of it.” And with that being said there, it turned into. My dog is barking.
[00:05:50] Jake White: That’s real life right there.
“Youth Empowerment and Peer-Led Prevention”
[00:05:52] Joe Tracey: Yes, it is. But with that being said, then it turned into bring in all the kids together from the county, and they put them in the local college, and they did a cross section of kids. So there was just every different background race, socio-economic status, everything, we brought them all together. And they had a one day “Youth4Youth” Conference, and that was trying to make a difference how they treat each other. That was the end of it, or so we thought. And what ended up happening is different districts heard about that. And they’re like, “Can you come and do that for us?” So “Youth4Youth” actually started 24 years ago. And it was back in Ohio. And it’s kind of just carried on, carried on. And I wasn’t involved initially, I went my own way. And I went to college, and then started working, construction and all these different things. And then ultimately, I ended up in in sales, and was really good at it, I hated. And I was in the car business, too. So if that really tells anybody why I hated it, there is that 70 hours a week. And I did the turning point was when I was a manager and let go for not taking advantage of people. And I was just like, “I need something else.” And it just kind of one of those things, I started talking my dad and he’s like, “Why don’t you give this, why don’t you come out and help me out with what I do?” And at the time, I was really going through some things in my life. And I felt that this was the best way to keep my life on track. I wasn’t an alcoholic or anything like that. But making sure that I had goals, making sure I understood what values meant to me, taking care of myself, and there’s a lot of different things that were going on with it. I said, “Not only can I help people, and help people become their best, but also I can help myself.” So I kind of got into it for a little bit of a selfish reason to keep myself on track. But then it just turned into one of those things that it worked out and I love what I do, and as they say the rest is history.
[00:08:28] Jake White: Wow, that’s incredible. Because you went from and you did a complete 180. As far as professions would go, I’m sure you learned a lot in your other roles that help you now? But what’s so crazy is that you are probably sincerely let go for doing the right thing. You’re valuing people and integrity more and that wasn’t okay by your company. So you went from that environment of probably you’d be celebrated for doing the wrong thing. You’re firefight right thing. Now you’re in a wrenching space where you’re helping fight for student’s lives doing the right thing, but we don’t get celebrated enough in this field. There’s not a big bell, you rang when you make the sale or you save a life or anything like that. You go back in it, you write another grant, you do another program, you reach new students, and you just keep going. So I feel like you did kind of this flip. But now you’re impacting the world in a great way.
[00:09:32] Joe Tracey: I did this flip. And I think it really worked out for me personally, because I don’t like the spotlight. I don’t like the attention. So with prevention, you don’t get the spotlight. You don’t know that you made a difference in somebody’s life, and that’s fine with me. But there are those little wins that you get throughout all throughout the day that are great. I was just going through these. This is all letters it written to you last year from classes when we’re doing a program. I had no idea about that the kids wrote this until I met with the school last week and it’s one of those things where I wasn’t celebrated, but just that little stack of papers there, that’s 100 reasons why you do it right there.
[00:10:21] Jake White: It’s so true. Let’s talk a little bit about your programs and your successes. Can you tell us about something that you think is gone really well, within your programming or anything that you could just brag on and other people could emulate?
[00:10:38] Joe Tracey: So one of the big things that is part of our success, and we’re at here in Arizona. A lot of people know, who we are and what we do. A lot of it has nothing to do with the work that we do. It’s the work that the kid’s do, that’s probably our biggest success is being able to get the kids involved in this. It’s not just having them say, “Oh, don’t do drugs, because we know, everybody knows drugs are bad.” And they’ve heard it for this and that. But now all of a sudden, we’re giving them the tools to spread that message themselves. And they make a difference in their community and boils down with it. Kids want to be heard. And they want to know that they’re making a difference. And that’s probably been our biggest success is just being able to have that peer to peer communication is huge. So a little bit about what that looks like as far as the actual peer to peer communication is while we go in and build a group within the school, it’s not necessarily the best students. But it’s kids that have been identified as leading people, whether it’s positive or negative. So we could have kids that have behavioral issues which is fine. Maybe they just don’t know any better. Maybe that’s how they get attached. There’s so many different reasons behind.
[00:12:14] Jake White: Leadership capabilities can show up in different ways and different actions. So you’re helping identify whether it’s being used for good in their life yet or not, you could come in and help direct it.
[00:12:29] Joe Tracey: So we direct it, and we give them the skills and they go out and they determine what problems that I see in my school? And if you look behind me here, some of these posters that I have up, some of these are actually things that they came up with. So what’s your why, that was one of the ones that the high school group and don’t stay stuck. Like that was a huge one, don’t stay stuck in negative thinking bad relationships? It’s just figuring out a way to move forward and whether you gotta go backwards at first, just don’t sit there. It’s not for me, this happen, it sucks, but I’m going to figure out a way to make life better.
“Youth-Led School Initiatives: Building Resilience and Addressing Student Needs”
[00:13:15] Jake White: What are some things that the students are doing that you’re looking at them thinking like, “Whoa, I can’t believe that they’re doing this, like our students are taking charge and leading this.”
[00:13:25] Joe Tracey: So one of the things that they do is, they are tasked with getting a message out to the entire school. And that could be a high school where there’s four grades that could be some of the schools out here are kindergarten through eighth grade. So there’s either way they are tasked with identifying problems coming up solution, and getting that to the entire school. So I’ve had students where they have actually designed posters that have whatever their theme is, for the year, whatever they’re addressing, and they will go to every classroom on that campus. And they will do a 5 to 10 minute presentation on what it means to be respectful or taking care of your mental health or why you shouldn’t substances or whatever, whatever their thing is, and that’s, that’s the key thing is if I go into their school, and I say, “Well, looks like to me, you got a problem with ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’, that is not valid, because I’m not there yet.” So for them to come up what the problems are, and then say, these are some things that are protective factors or positive things that will help us get to the next stage. And then they go the entire thing and they do 40 presentations, that’s powerful.
[00:14:53] Jake White: Yeah, that is incredible. And it’s funny to me when I first got into the prevention field, I would hear about groups like this. And I was confused. Since I didn’t really know much about, I guess addiction and all the factors, aces and everything that goes into someone’s ability to either choose drugs or choose something else is because I didn’t understand that I would hear stories of drug prevention coalitions. And they were almost doing other work because the students identified problems in the schools that weren’t necessarily drug prevention. So in my mind, I thought, “Wait, that’s not drug prevention.” But in reality, it actually hits to the core of a lot of the reasons why students would use so it’s real prevention work. So they identify bullying and relationships, it’s actually getting to the core of why a student might feel left out, and they don’t belong, and why they might be at risk for using substances or tackling issues at home whether it’s homelessness, or needing to be fed, or having shoes or clothes, is we don’t see all of the areas that contribute to prevention. So I love the fact that the students, like you said, they’re identifying what they see as a need. They’re passionate about tackling it, and they come up with a campaign, a presentation, that’s really cool and you get to support them and help develop leaders.
[00:16:22] Joe Tracey: You’ll through that process, there we go over different skills that are success skills, such as we teach them how to set goals. Now we teach them how to speak in public. Think about that, it doesn’t sound like that scary. But as a 12, 13 year old, when I say, “You’re gonna have to go to every classroom and you’re gonna have to give a presentation.” Think about that one time he had to do a science report or a book report or something. So giving them the skills that they need in order to be successful. And the fact that they’re able, they can go out and actually use these skills, then all of a sudden they see we set a goal to deliver our message to the entire school, we came up with a plan of how to do that, we put our plan in action and it worked. There’s a lot of different factors that go into the whole process of trying to give leadership and success skills to kids. Because you can’t just go in and say, “Hey, set goals.”
[00:17:27] Jake White: That is so good and so encouraging to see that students have taken up the challenge, they have enough freedom to direct the project, and then to fulfill it while they have you as a mentor and a coach to go along with them. And I want to just if you could rapid fire, maybe just a few things you already did, on the topics that they’ve discussed maybe the last two years yourself that they’ve wanted to discuss. And then I want to ask you another question on kind of the opposite side of that first one.
[00:17:55] Joe Tracey: So we don’t stay stuck. That was wonderful. We actually use that in our marketing. Like we’ve had billboards out here. And everything I had that one of the schools last year stood for respect each other, community, teacher, environments, property and time. There were just different things that they were respecting. And we had one that was don’t struggle in silence that was coming right out of COVID. Mental health, as we know, is taken a huge, huge dive since COVID. And a lot of kids have been able to be a little more self-aware about how they feel and things like that, but don’t struggle in silence was one of them. So it’s just every year they come up with all these different you think, well, there’s no way they’re going to come up with anything that was better than last year. Like the one that we have right now that they started last year, it’s rolling into this year as choice matters, and understand you that each choice as a consequence, whether it’s positive or negative, and for a group, but 12, 13, 14 year olds to come up with that on their own. , that’s that we, they, they surprise me every time. It’s amazing that everything that they can come up with.
“The Challenges and Triumphs of Youth Substance Abuse Prevention”
[00:19:22] Jake White: It’s so great that you get to be a part of that and to see it. And like you said, that’s your favorite part of the job. And just hearing about it, it lights me up. I want to ask you on the other side of the spectrum, since we talked about some of the winds and the cool stuff, is this work can actually be pretty tough to and what is one of the challenges that you faced before or maybe are facing now in doing this work?
[00:19:48] Joe Tracey: Trauma in the biggest challenge is every school, every community, every family, they’re different. So being able to make sense to every get it to make sense to the masses, that’s probably the hardest thing. Because if you think about it, people live completely different lives. My wife and I were actually talking about this a few weeks ago, because we were talking, I have a 13 year old, and we’re kind of talking about stuff back when we were kids and this and that, but he looked at it, my wife was like, “You’re nothing like that.” Because she lived a little tougher life. No, I did not live as I didn’t live in the inner city, and all these other things. But understanding that everybody’s background is different. And not everything’s gonna resonate with each kid the same way. So being able to find how to connect with that there is a way to connect every kid. But the difficult part is finding out that specific way of how to make that connection. And there’s no manual that says, if you asked this question, he knew that’s going to work but that also goes with one of the biggest wins too that you’ve had trouble connecting with an individual. And then three months later, all of a sudden, you see that that turn and somebody that gives you some of the biggest wins also but you’ll finding how to reach each person correctly is probably the most difficult thing. And unfortunately, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a correct answer to how to do that. It’s just one of those things where you got to try and don’t give up and understand that it’s not you, that’s not reaching them, there’s things that have happened before that have made that difficult for that to happen.
[00:21:59] Jake White: It’s so true. And it’s just a testament to the fact that there’s not a one solution. Like, if we had found this thing, we can just sweep across the nation, and make drugs unappealing. And for smart choices to just bounce out of our brain and our bodies, that doesn’t exist. The reality is we’re here doing the difficult work, because not only is our world changing every single day. So what happened yesterday, or last month, might not work this month, our culture is continually changing. But also, like you said, we’re working with different populations, and we can’t do everything. So that just makes me just thankful for anyone who’s in this field, who is pouring into kids pouring into students, and helping them make better choices is we need all of us from every background, and every piece of diversity that we can have. Because we’re all going to connect with different students and we’re all going to bring different lessons. And we have to do this together, that’s really well said, I’m glad that you brought that up. It actually reminds me to have this quote, “If you speak to everyone, you reach no one”. And I think we have that mindset of like, I want to, I want to reach everybody. So I have to be really general in our PSAs, and our marketing and our social media, when in reality, we need to be speaking to a specific type of person with a specific problem or a perspective. So we can really speak to their life and their issues. And that’s also why we need different messaging for different populations and all that good stuff.
[00:23:43] Joe Tracey: Especially if you think about with primary prevention, we generally we work 12 to 17 is our target population there. And one thing that’s consistent with almost every 12 to 17 year old is they live at home with their parents. And when you go in there, and you say, “Don’t smoke cigarettes, don’t vape, don’t smoke marijuana, don’t drink.” And they go, “My parents got a bomb sitting on a table.” Now all of a sudden, you got a confrontation there with their kid. Because you’re taking something that’s normalized in their life and you’re saying, “It’s bad”. So finding it that way too. I don’t like when people go and just say, “Don’t do drugs, it’s bad.” Let’s back out what was that bring, this is your brain on drugs? And they showed the frying in the pan and things like that. It was like it just said, you need drugs, your brains gonna fried and you’re gonna die and then all of a sudden, stuff like that didn’t happen if there’s no credibility. So luckily enough now we have science. And science is a great part because we know that their brains developing until they’re 25 years old. Your parents are doing stuff, that’s great because they’re an adult, and they’re able to make those choices at this point. My goal is to help to get you through adolescence, so your brain develops, and then you don’t fall down there that visible wine of addiction, because just with the science, we know that if they start using as a teenager, the odds of them actually falling into a substance use disorder, and then that wine of addiction. We know that is really increased just by how old they are with first youth. So that’s really being able to reach them and give them the information that they need to make a smart choice being able to give me and I’ll let them feel empowered, that’s a huge thing. Don’t go in there and preach to kids. Give them the information, they’re smart enough, they know that if they have the right information, they know what they want life.
“Inspiring Youth Substance Abuse Prevention”
[00:26:14] Jake White: That’s good. That was actually ties right into my next question. So I’ll skip that. It was, “What are your pet peeves about prevention?” So you actually tackled that one? So the next question is, if you were talking to someone who’s brand new in the field, maybe they’ve been giving your job title, maybe a community like yours to work in, what advice would you want to give them?
[00:26:38] Joe Tracey: Know that you are making a difference, even though you will not see it. You may see it 10 years from now, if they see you and say, “I remember your clap.” But realistically, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference or not. And kids are kids, you’re there, you’re gonna go in there. And whatever you’re doing with them, whether it’s a fun activity, where they’re learning a game or something or if you’re trying to teach them how to do for box breathing, and relaxing themselves or mindfulness. Most of the time, they’re going to pretend they’re not paying attention to you. And if they are paying attention, you’re not gonna be able to tell. Just because kids are so stimulated now. They have all their fidget things and their phones and stuff like that. It’s amazing that they do listen. And I found that out just by teachers coming up to me months later and say, “I know you didn’t think you made a difference. But I’m there your ELA teacher, and they journal about the things that she taught” and you’re like, “Wow, really in it.” At the time, you just saw your this guy in there talk. Maybe there were three kids that were paying attention, they were interacting with you. But you really don’t think you’re making a difference, but you are. And as long as you’re genuine, and you really have a passion for just helping kids become their best. They’re gonna take what you say to heart. And just unfortunately, it’s not one of those things like you were saying earlier, where I don’t get the walk out of the room and ring a bell or cut off a tie and be like below me and it just it doesn’t happen. Most time I walk out a room to go cheese that was rough. But I know through my practicing and professional development that if I go in there and do what I need to do what I’m supposed to do, it’ll all work out.
[00:28:53] Jake White: That’s great man. With that, Joe, thank you so much for the work that you’re doing in prevention and with youth and also partnering with young people to bring them on the journey with you. Because even just being in the same room and planning some events with you for different coalition’s it’s been evident that you’re somebody who loves this work for all the right reasons. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
[00:29:14] Joe Tracey: Hey, thanks, Jake. I appreciate it. And I love the work you’re doing also. So we’ll talk to you later.
[00:29:20] Jake White: Alright, sounds good. And there we have it another episode of Party Talk where we empower leaders and youth drug prevention. I hope that you enjoyed this episode with Joe Tracey. And again, if you love this show, please let us know by leaving a review and subscribe so that you can listen in every Monday on your way to work. Keep impacting the world and keep up the great work.
