Should The Town Fund WaylandCares?

Wayland voters will be asked to fund WaylandCares at Town Meeting.  It is important for Wayland voters to know what WaylandCares is in order to understand the impact of your vote.  

WaylandCares is a community-wide coalition focused on substance abuse prevention within the broad context of a healthy community in Wayland, Massachusetts. We believe it is the collective responsibility of the community to create a safe environment for our young people and to support healthy decision making regarding physical and mental health of our youth. 

Often times substance abuse prevention programs spend all their energy and resources on the problem and offer little to no recognition to the majority of young people who make good choices. WaylandCares however, has chosen a multi-strategy approach that is now showing measurable results.  In Wayland, more Wayland High School students chose not to use alcohol and drugs than did.  This is important, because we all know that our children's peer groups have great influence on the choices they make.  WaylandCares knows this too, and for this reason has focused resources on building and expanding the youth peer group that chooses not to use alcohol and drugs among the student body at Wayland High School.  When you look at the results, it is clear that the Coalition’s efforts are working.  Wayland's youth alcohol rates have dropped by 25% in the last four years. Youth marijuana use rates in Wayland have dropped 4% which is unique to the state's trend where communities are experiencing big increases in teen pot use. 

To be specific, the Coalition has focused on three areas of prevention: 

1.  Implementing a Social Norms Marketing Campaign:  WaylandCares spent 3 years on a messaging campaign that capitalizes on the young people in this community who choose NOT to drink alcohol or use drugs.  Compelling, visual messaging that congratulate WHS students for making good choices have been regularly posted throughout the school for the last 3 years.  These messages change bi-weekly at the high school and are located in highly visible places for students to see them.  Through focus groups and market testing, WaylandCares relies on WHS students to develop messages so they are salient and meaningful to our local youth.  If you're interested in what these messages look like, go to the WaylandCares office to see them all over their wall - they're quite impressive.

2.  Increasing Youth Leadership:  Capitalizing on SADD, WaylandCares has built a vibrant and active youth leadership program where students drive activities throughout the year that offer teens safe and fun places to socialize and be together when they are not in school.  Events include the STOMP series that was held after every home football game last year where high school students were invited into the field house for dances and social fun. Open microphone events, the Wayglo Dance held last year, and the Fall Harvest that happened this past October.  The youth leadership program has also offered students the opportunity to talk with parents about what works in helping teens make safe and healthy choices, and to travel to places like Arizona and California for youth leadership trainings.

3.  Aligning adults in the community with prevention strategies:  Using a multiple strategy approach, WaylandCares has also focused on increasing deterrents for teen substance use in Wayland.  The Coalition has worked to inform parents about parenting strategies that work to help teens make good, safe choices, and also trained Wayland police officers on enforcement practices when responding to a teen party call or intervening with kids found smoking marijuana in a car. WaylandCares has worked to align the adults in this community with what works to protect kids from the lure of drugs and alcohol. This means establishing structures that set a high bar yet support kids when they are unable to meet that bar.  We need a unified adult approach in this community. Otherwise as parents, we're on our own trying to protect our kids from the bad things that happen when our children mess with drugs and alcohol.

WaylandCares is the catalyst for creating local change that has resulted in more Wayland teens choosing a drug-free lifestyle than ever before.  But funding for WaylandCares by the federal goverment is ending. Can Wayland afford to pick up the funding for this so this important work can continue? Can Wayland afford not to fund this?  So when you cast your vote on this matter you are answering this question: Do we want to continue the great work of WaylandCares or not? I hope you will join me in voting to support town funding for WaylandCares.