Prom creates a wonderful memory for many students at Florida high schools. Teens plan, both individually and at school, to make prom a special night. Yet, drugs and alcohol can sometimes ruin that special night. In the worst-case scenario, the night can become tragic.

According to a AAA survey, 31 percent of high schoolers say they or someone they know plan to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol sometime during prom/graduation season. This statistic is troubling—students go through the effort of creating that special prom memory (not to mention the money their parents spend on gowns, tuxes and so on), then might get impaired enough to not remember the night.

The questions are tough to hear and challenging to answer:

• “Mom, why is marijuana legal in some states and illegal in others?”
• “Dad, what should I do if all my friends are drinking at a party and pressure me to have a beer?”
• “My neck hurts. Can I take one of those Vicodins you were prescribed after your surgery last year?”
• “Mom, Dad, did you drink when you were in high school?”

These are important questions your teens might be asking. And even if they aren’t asking, the topics are still important ones to discuss with your kids. Unfortunately, these hard conversations often scare parents, who worry they might not get their point across, will sound too frantic when their teens are asking about pot or won’t know what to say beyond “just say no.”

The 32nd Annual Informed Families Dinner at Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant will take place on Monday, May 15, 2017. The Joe's dinner will raise funds to support Informed Families' prevention programs and initiatives across Florida, which are designed to help kids grow up safe, healthy and drug free.

On March 16, event co-chairs Pam Gigante-Bunge & Alfred Bunge generously opened up their beautiful Pinecrest home to sponsors, board members and friends of Informed Families to preview plans for the fabulous upcoming 32nd Annual Dinner at Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant, which will be held on May 15th. The Bunges, along with fellow event co-chairs, Linda Neider & Paul Sugrue, gathered with and thanked sponsors and special guests, while sharing exciting details about the much-anticipated event.

The theme of this year’s dinner is “Communities That Care.” Working together as a community is necessary to stop the spread of drug use, especially the devastating current opioid epidemic:

• According to a 2017 article in The New York Times, “Public health officials have called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015.
• Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes.
• In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides.

Besides, who can resist sharing a dinner of Joe's Stone Crabs with family and friends - without the wait? The annual Informed Families Dinner at Joe’s is an event with no boring speeches; just good friends and families who want to help kids grow up safe, healthy and drug free!

The Informed Families dinner at Joe’s brings out Miami’s best families. Will you be part of the festivities? For more information, please contact Esther Davila Edavila@Informedfamilies.org or 305-856-4886. View sponsorship information.

About the 2017 Joe's Event Co-Chairs

Pam Giganti-Bunge

Pam Giganti-Bunge is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and veteran news anchor who has worked in the radio and television industry for the last 26 years. She is currently the host of public affairs program, Your South Florida, on South Florida PBS. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Miami’s School of Communication. For nearly 15 years, she led WTVJ NBC 6’s morning team as anchor of South Florida Today. Giganti-Bunge has covered presidents and leaders, soldiers in wartime, and devoted countless hours to breaking news including hurricanes. In 2009, she won an Emmy for her health special, “Breast Cancer: Interactive.” She has been recognized with an NBC Certificate of Excellence and an Ovation Award for Outstanding Teamwork. Giganti-Bunge has supported several charitable organizations in addition to Informed Families. She is a former board member of the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and has mentored at-risk high school girls through Women of Tomorrow. Pam and her husband Alfred Bunge are the proud parents of three daughters.

Alfred Bunge

Alfred Bunge is a Managing Director and Banker at the J.P. Morgan Private Bank. He leads an integrated team of specialists that advises ultra-high net worth clients throughout South Florida and Puerto Rico; delivering an array of customized financial planning, investment management and fiduciary services, among others. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Bunge was a Principal at Bernstein Global Wealth Management where he led and mentored a team of financial advisors and associates to deliver financial strategies to high net worth clients and their professional advisors in South Florida and Latin America. Before entering the financial services industry, Bunge served as regional manager for the Latin America Management Team of Fortune 100 company, Johnson Controls, Inc. A commissioned officer of the U.S. Navy, Bunge graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a BS in Economics and Political Science, and serves as Vice President of the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association – Miami Chapter. He earned an MBA from the University of Miami where he has remained active and is Past-President of the Citizens Board and former Member of the UM Board of Trustees. Bunge is a member of the Orange Bowl Committee and Advisory Board member of Mission United, the United Way of Miami’s veteran support organization.

Dr. Linda Neider

Dr. Linda Neider serves many roles at the University of Miami, where she has won dozens of awards teaching undergraduate, MBA and executive classes in leadership, organizational behavior and human capital (resource) management. She is Director of the Master of Science program in Management, Leadership specialization and Professor in the Department of Management and the Department of Health Sector Management and Policy plus the Program Coordinator, Human Capital Curriculum, Global MBA Program for the Americas. Neider is also former Vice Dean at UM for Internal University Relations, Global/Cross- Disciplinary Initiatives and Undergraduate Programs. She co-edits the book series, Research in Management, which recently published Ethical Leadership (volume 10) and Transforming Organizations (volume 11). In addition to her commitment to UM, Neider serves on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society of Greater Miami, the Board of Governors for the Young Patronesses of the Opera and the Board of the Cotillion Club of Greater Miami. Neider has an M.A., an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Dr. Paul Sugrue

Dr. Paul Sugrue is a proud veteran and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He is the former Dean of the School of Business at the University of Miami and Professor of Management Science. As Dean from 1992-2007, Sugrue doubled the square footage of the School of Business by raising money to fully fund the construction of seven major capital projects: DelaCruz Study Center, Ziff Graduate Placement Center, Storer Auditorium, McLamore Executive Education Center, Aresty Graduate School Building, Kosar/Epstein Faculty Office Building and the Newman Information Resource Center. During his tenure as Dean, Sugrue significantly improved the School of Business with the M.B.A. program ranking as 14th among regional business schools by The Wall Street Journal and 58th nationally by US News and World Report; undergraduate SAT scores increased by 210 points, twice the increase for the rest of the university; and freshmen retention rose from 78% in 1992 to 92% in 2007. Sugrue currently teaches Statistics and publishes in the area of financial aid allocation models. Besides his B.S. from the Naval Academy, Sugrue earned an M.B.A. from the University of Rhode Island and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Married to Linda Neider, their one daughter has completed her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D.

After raising five kids and running a full time child care center for over two decades, Martina "Tina" Belotti has dedicated her life to helping all Monroe County children have a bright future. As an Informed Families Ambassador and professional counselor at Marathon Middle School and Marathon High School, Tina works to help students grow up safe, healthy and drug free through Informed Families’ four campaigns and several other initiatives.

“I originally heard about Informed Families over the years at different statewide conferences,” said Tina. “I am very happy to be an Ambassador and gain access to the resources they provide me. As a prevention counselor, I do a monthly presentation to students, in addition to various groups, and I typically have to seek out and be creative about obtaining materials. I want the kids to get excited about prevention on campus so it helps.”

From running lunchtime youth-led pledge campaigns and coordinating activities for Red Ribbon Week to delivering the evidence-based program Project Success and volunteering with a team of students for various events such as the 7 Mile Bridge Run, Tina possesses a seemingly endless supply of energy and passion for her work. However, her budget for programs and activities is extremely limited. Luckily, what Tina lacks in finances, she makes up for in human resources. Tina works with her daughter, Dr. Christina Belotti, an 8^th grade Language Arts teacher at Marathon Middle School, to coordinate school-wide activities with 40 student volunteers, or Youth Ambassadors appropriately named the “Keys To Be The Change.”

Middle school is a wonderful, crazy and confusing time for kids. Their hormones begin to kick into high gear, they are becoming more self-aware and independent, and they begin to feel more like adults and less like children. Indeed, the “middle” in middle school is appropriate—these kids are not quite ready for high school, and in many ways, still behave like tweens.

This is exactly why middle school is not too soon to talk to your students about drugs; in fact, many prevention professionals would tell you to start talking much earlier. In an effort to act older, students may engage in riskier behavior, like trying drugs and alcohol, but as younger teens (as may also be true for older teens), they might not be equipped to understand the consequences of their choices. Florida middle schools cannot be shy or naively believe, “Oh, these kids are too young for this kind of talk.” The reality is, they aren’t too young—this is a perfect time to spread the message about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Here are some important points for educators to keep in mind as they do:

The idea of high school parties often conjures images of outrageous bashes you remember from John Hughes movies or other teen flicks from the ’80s and ’90s. Or, perhaps you recall parties from your own youth and the chaos that may have accompanied them. These memories may scare you into never trusting your teens to throw a party themselves—even one that’s supervised.

Make no mistake: Unsupervised high school parties are a terrible idea, often descending into Sixteen Candles- or American Pie-type anarchy and destruction. However, when properly planned and supervised, with clear rules in place, your teens can throw a party for their friends that is both fun and safe. Here are some tips on how to help them make that happen:

Parents are the biggest influencers in their teenagers’ lives. With so many competing influences, parents might not believe that, and good luck getting teens to admit it—but it’s true nonetheless. For example, one survey discovered that kids whose parents told them that underage drinking was unacceptable were 80 percent less likely to drink. This powerful statistic underscores the importance of delivering straightforward messages about drugs and alcohol to your teens and setting—and enforcing—strong family rules.

Alas, those family rules can become a bone of contention with teens, who are at an age in which they are trying to carve their own independence. However, they can more easily make their own decisions, and work toward their independence, if they know and understand their parents’ rules and expectations. Here are some tips for enforcing family rules that, ultimately, will help protect your teen:

Another successful Lock Your Meds campaign is coming to a close. This initiative is aimed at providing prescription drugs abuse facts to parents, students and educators, as well as encouraging parents to keep powerful medicine locked up and away from teens who might steal and improperly use the pills.

Yet, the effort to curb prescription drug abuse can’t end simply because our 2017 campaign is ending. Pills remain a big problem in Florida schools and teachers are an important ally in keeping kids safe. Here are several prescription drug abuse facts teachers should know:

Imagine the life of a child of an alcoholic or drug addict. The lack of stability, nurturing, support and the presence of trauma and stress can cause great harm to children's development and future. While the issue is very real, given the right support, research shows that these children can change the trajectory of their lives and achieve great success. That's what National Children of Alcohol's Awareness Week is all about.

The annual observance of Children of Alcoholics Awareness Week 2017 took place in February and was led by Sis Wenger, President and CEO of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. Sis also serves on the board of the National Family Partnership. This international awareness campaign was honored by NACoA affiliate organizations, child supporting agencies, faith communities, treatment programs, schools and local communities across the country.

Middle and high school students seem to get a bad rap in this day and age. There’s a perception that they are always on their smartphones, are lazy, are disinterested in hard work, are selfish, and are quick to use and abuse drugs and alcohol.

Thankfully, most educators know differently. They see the success from their students: both day-to-day achievements and long-term progress. They see teens’ hard work—sure, it might take a different form than previous generations, but it’s hard work nonetheless. And they see how students inspire others, through coordinated schoolwide efforts, peer counseling or just being a good friend.