Teen Talk

Our activity was a teen-focused community conversation on substance use and the questions teens had regarding it. This was held at the local hospital in the middle of the county. Originally the meeting was scheduled for one hour, but most participants stayed for two hours. A total of 35 individuals were in attendance, including two who joined via Zoom, four panelists, one moderator, 14 youth, and 16 adults. The moderator and one panelist were from a faith-based recovery organization. The other panelists included our Director of Prevention, an elementary education student from Ball State University, and a therapist from Meridian Health. During this event each teen in attendance was given the opportunity to ask a question to the panel. Three adults also asked questions, and the panelist asked 11 questions to gain a deeper understanding of youth needs. Some notable quotes were: “What is the worst drug to use?” “The one that’s going to hook you the fastest. The problem is the label doesn’t tell you which one it is.” “It used to be that meth was meth, coke was coke, marijuana was marijuana.” And quotes about fentanyl now being in most drugs: “Back in my day you could experiment; now you die.” “Anything can be a hard drug now,” and one teen noting, “When parents do stuff, it makes it look okay.”

According to the Indiana Youth Survey, the average age of first use for our county, Jay County, is 13. Among seventh and 12th graders, 10% indicated that they had used vapor products and 14% of students had indicated that they drank alcohol in the past 30 days. Among students who indicated drinking in the past 30 days, 24% also had indications that they were mentally depressed. About 22% of students who reported vaping and 24% of students who reported drinking also had a history of parental incarceration. In a 2023 community survey, 69.6% of respondents noted that they think youth have easy access to alcohol via parents supplying it. In a 2022 community survey, 17.39% of participants believed substance use to be among the top three issues facing today’s youth, and more than 80% of participants believed parents supplying it was one way youth obtain alcohol. On a knowledge pre-check for one of our Botvin classes, 16% of students said it was not harmful to smoke marijuana once or twice a week. The county’s age-adjusted, drug- and opioid-involved overdose death rate was 48.2 per 100,00 population, which is more than twice that of the 23.5 U.S. value, according to the Healthy Community Alliance. The rate of non-fatal emergency department visits due to opioid overdoses was 249.6 per 100,000 population compared to Indiana’s 75.2. Also, according to the Healthy Community Alliance, 21.9% of adults smoke. 

• Information Dissemination Strategy - focuses on improving awareness and knowledge of the effects of AOD issues on communities and families through “one-way” communication with the audience such as speaking engagements, health fairs, and distribution of print materials.
• Education Strategy - focuses on “two-way” communication between the facilitator and participants and aims to improve life/social skills such as decision making, refusal skills, and critical analysis.

• Hold meetings or discussion groups on alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention.

• Lack of interest from the community
• Particularly severe or resistant substance use issues in our community

Most of those in attendance were related to the moderator or someone from the Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition staff. During the discussion, a panelist asked, “Does anyone not want to be here today?,” to which all of the teens nodded or raised hands. Following that, the panelist asked, “Did anyone hold back today because of adults in the room?” Again all the youth in attendance nodded or raised hands. At this point the adults, outside of this panelist, were asked to leave. Following that, the youth stayed 45 minutes past the end of the set meeting time and asked questions and shared concerns they had been unable to express previously due to discomfort. Through both creating and asking how to make the space a safe place for conversation, we were able to get far more engagement while answering and talking about the most important subjects to the youth. Having the panelist ask questions back was also very insightful and helped get deeper questions asked. By having a majority of questions by teens, not adults, the focus was where it needed to be, on the teens. The panelist also asked teens several questions on how to get more of them involved, whether they would want to come back, how to advertise, and when and where would be the best for teens to attend. 

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We reached our audience mainly through social media and word of mouth from staff and community members and partner organizations. We also provided snacks at the meeting to encourage attendance. 

• StopAlcoholAbuse.gov website
• Communities Talk website
• Communities Talk toolkits