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Whistler For Youth WFY
(Communities That Care)
About Whistler For Youth
Helping Youth Stay On Track
Information for Parents of Teenaged Children
About Whistler
For Youth
Officially launched
in February of 2003, Whistler For Youth's vision is to "promote
a safe community where residents and guests of all ages are comfortable
and secure." Because Whistler for Youth is concerned with prevention,
its efforts address the needs of children, families and two unique
youth groups. These groups are Whistler's own youth and the young
adults aged 18-26 who are part of the permanent and temporary workforce
in the Community.
Whistler For
Youth is an active coalition of organizations and individuals win
the Whistler area, ranging from the Mayor himself to representatives
of parents and parent organizations, community services of various
kinds, Vancouver Coastal Health, schools, the RMCP, businesses and
communities of faith.
In 2004 and 2006, Whistler
for Youth undertook an assessment of the Community. The assessment
included a review of archival data and a survey of grade 6-12 students
in local schools.
In addition
to the programs outlined on this page for parents, programs have
been identified to target risk factors identified in the community
and young adult domains.
Dr. Colin Mangham,
a highly respected prevention researcher and Principal of Population
Health Promotion Associates in Langley, B.C. is an advisor to Whistler
For Youth.
For more information
or to get involved with Whistler For Youth, please contact:
Deanne Zeidler, Chair, 604-902-4271
Thanks to our
sponsors:
Resort Municipality of Whistler,
Safe Streets Program,
Spring Creek and Myrtle Phillip School Parent Advisory Councils
School District 48
Ministry for Children and Family Development
In September 2007, Whistler for Youth Community Board Members selected strategies
to address the top risk factors shown in research to contribute
to the development of six youth health and behavior
problems (substance abuse, violence, delinquency, school drop out, depression/anxiety
and teen pregnancy).
WFY supports efforts to promote healthy norms in our community. TheBoard actively advocates for healthy images in our community as the researchhas shown that community laws and norms favorable toward alcohol and drugare predictive of youth development of the six health and behavior problems.WFY has developed a video which is available to employers as an orientationtool to help promote healthy behavior by employees in our community.
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Helping Youth Stay On Track
1. Stay
On Track is a public awareness program designed to support the healthy
development of children and youth.
As part
of the Stay On Track Program a number of resources have been
designed to help parents build protective factors in their
children. Click below to download:
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Information
for Parents of Teenaged Children
Whistler For Youth has identified a number of gold standard internationally validated programs as resources for families in our community.
Parenting Wisely-In the fall of 2007 Parenting Wisely will be available for parents of 11-18 year olds. This self-paced curriculum is available for use by sign up and takes an average of three hours to complete. The curriculum, which uses video game technology is suitable for parents and any other relatives or caregivers who would like to develop more effective parenting skills. The research notes that it is ideal if parents can participate when their children are in grades 6-9 before the transition into the later teen years. The program helps to strengthen family communication, increase parental supervision skills, improve discipline and lower childrens’ risk for developing health and behavior problems. The program may be used with older children.
Strengthening Families Program for Parents and Youth 10-14-In 2008, this Program for Parents and Youth (10-14)-A video based intervention designed with parent, youth and family sessions using narrated videos that portray typical youth and parent situations. The program takes seven weeks with booster sessions and includes interactive activities including role-playing discussions, learning games and family projects. The program benefits include improved family functioning, increased youth resistance to drugs and alcohol. Youth sessions focus on strengthening goal setting, dealing with stress and strong emotions, communication skills, increasing responsible behavior, and improving skills to deal with peer pressure. Parents discuss the importance of both showing love to their youth while, at the same time, setting appropriate limits. Topics include making house rules, encouraging good behavior, using consequences, building bridges, and protecting against substance abuse.
Project Alert-This program is a school based prevention program for middle or junior high schools students that focuses on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. The program provides youth with skills to prevent nonusers form experimenting with drugs and prevents those youth already using drugs from becoming regular users or abusers. The program provides youth to identify and resist prodrug pressures. Based on the strong research, this new school based prevention program has been identified as an addition to the existing school based programming in the future details to follow.
Thanks to generous support from sponsoring organizations, there is no charge for the programming.
For more information
or to register, please contact Lisa Paterson,
Project Manager at 604-815-9578 or by e-mail at lisajpat at shaw.ca.
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