Informed Families Offers Answers During Family Day 2016 

Informed Families, a Florida nonprofit devoted to helping kids grow up safe, healthy and drug-free, is sponsoring the Florida celebration of Family Day, an event that promotes the importance of family dinners and parental engagement by challenging families to enjoy a meal together on Sept. 26 and regularly thereafter. More details about Family Day 2016 can be found at 

Florida's families deal with hectic schedules, afterschool activities and other outside influences that interfere with dinnertime. This reality is unfortunate because research has shown that the more children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs. Family Day is a national effort, developed by the Center for Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, to promote family dinners as an effective way to reduce youth substance abuse and other risky behaviors.http://www.flfamilyday.com.

According to the latest study on teen drug use in the United States, 8.1 percent of eighth-graders used illicit drugs during any given month in 2015. A number like this could be seen as discouraging given the efforts schools and other organizations make to combat drug use in adolescents. But it could also be viewed another way: 91.9 percent of eighth-graders hadn’t used drugs during that time. That can be seen as a success—success that can be benchmarked, celebrated and built upon in the future.

Informed Families created the All Star Safe, Healthy & Drug Free Schools program to recognize the student success that schools are achieving throughout Florida through prevention efforts. A school that completes Informed Families’ four drug prevention campaigns is eligible to be named an All Star School; one All Star School is selected in each of the state’s 67 counties. All Star Schools receive well-deserved media recognition and $1,000 of prevention merchandise for the next school year.

Student success is the primary benefit of striving toward All Star Schools status. Here’s a look at what schools can achieve through the initiative:

Building A Drug Prevention Network Across Florida

Today, there is a Heroin Epidemic sweeping across America. All of our plans, dreams, and hopes for educating children can be swept away by this Epidemic. How do we face and fight this heroin Epidemic to assure the future of Florida’s children?

No one wants their child to become a drug addict, yet we are all overwhelmed with many demands and problems. There is little time to work on one of our most important goals: Defeating the drug problem.

We must join TOGETHER, creating CRITICAL MASS and a NETWORK to deliver consistent messages across Florida and across America to turn the tide of this epidemic.

Joining together sounds easy but it is not easy. Working together can be complicated and time consuming, thus we frequently avoid it.

Since working together is essential; Informed Families/The Florida Family Partnership is making it simple to join together and deliver effective messages to our children.

It's back to school…are you ready?  Informed Families’ summers are busy, as we prepare campaign toolkits and drug prevention resources for our statewide programs for the new school year.

As the school year begins, we look forward to hearing from our esteemed supporters, Ambassadors and dedicated parents. Our very first message was from a wonderful Ambassador, Anne Lewis of Baker County, who really re-energized all of us with her note. Here's what she wrote:

Christine,

I am so excited for the new school year and it is because of Informed Families!  I completed my order for materials today and then went to the website to check out everything there.  I LOVE the Family Dinner info and activities there. I have downloaded all of it and began planning and organizing that very minute. This has always been one of my favorite events and I plan to make it huge in my schools and community this year.

Parents at Freeport Middle School generally respond to Informed Families Ambassador and All Star Safe Healthy & Drug Free School winner Laura Estes quite positively. Not to anyone’s surprise, the majority of parents are very appreciative of her dedication to the health and well-being of her students, demonstrated by her delivery of year-round prevention programs.

“One mom told me she was walking by her daughter’s room and heard her daughter say, ‘no, we can never get involved with anything like that because you remember what Ms. Estes said,’” said Laura. “I love to hear stories like that or run into former students who tell me that they never tried drugs after going through my program.”

However, not all responses are immediately positive, especially among parents who are smokers or heavy drinkers.

“One parent who smoked cigarettes said, ‘if I have to hear about the harmful effects of tobacco products one more time, I’m going to strangle you,’” said Estes, with a smile. “Several of my students have inspired their own parents to break out of bad habits. They tell me all the time, ‘my mom hasn’t had a cigarette in three weeks’ or ‘my dad isn’t drinking as much anymore.’”

Please Don't Eat The Cactus

This article is an old favorite, originally printed in 2006.

Do you ever feel life is moving too fast to tell your children how to to survive in today's world?

Let me assure you that this dilemma does not end with your children!  Just when you think you have completed your life’s work, you get grandchildren, whose role it is to teach us the lessons our children never taught us. We, of course, believe we are teaching them.

Let me illustrate this. Recently, my daughter Kerrie, broke her leg in a horseback riding accident, never mind that we have pleaded with her not to participate in horse jumping events until her 4 young children are at least in college. Subsequently, she was in bed for a week and was advised to remain on crutches for 12 weeks. Of course it was her right leg, so driving was out of the question.

I immediately flew to California to manage the household, which consists of her husband, Jeff, four children (ages 6-12), three very large dogs - a mastiff, an aging lab and a runaway-every-chance-it-gets German Shepherd, along with two horses. I felt badly having to take more time off from Informed Families, but I am now convinced that Informed Families should consider these visits field work and provide me hazardous duty pay.

2 Florida Schools Selected & Honored For Prevention Success During 2015-2016 School Year

The sky’s the limit for these stars! Two Florida schools just earned bragging rights for their tremendous efforts to help prevent students from underage drinking and substance abuse. The All Star Schools were selected and recognized by Informed Families/The Florida Family Partnership, a 34-year-old Florida-based non-profit organization with a mission of helping kids grow up safe, healthy and drug free.

Freeport Middle School in Walton County, thanks to the efforts of Ambassador Laura Estes and the support of Principal Charlie Morse, and Olympia High School in Orange County, thanks to the efforts of Ambassador Molly Sidwell and the support of Principal Guy Swenson, were chosen among hundreds of schools participating in Informed Families’ Ambassador Program for their demonstrated dedication to year-round prevention activities and for their success in actively engaging students, parents and faculty in prevention.

“We are thrilled to recognize the outstanding efforts of Freeport High School and Olympia High School,” said Peggy B. Sapp, President and CEO of Informed Families. “Our All Star Safe, Healthy and Drug Free Schools know the importance of spreading healthy, drug-free messages to help students and families make smart choices surrounding alcohol and other drugs, ultimately saving lives. Our programs are designed to curb underage drinking, substance abuse and other risky behaviors - and the impact is real, thanks to the participation of our Ambassadors in schools across Florida – and especially our All Star Schools.” 

Summertime & The Livin' Is Easy...Or is it?

Stress, anxiety, anger, violence and road rage are words that describe the current vibe.  How do we deal with the overwhelming negative environments that confront us daily, either on the news or in our own neighborhoods?

It makes us sad and depressed to see the senseless loss of lives in Orlando (bless those families) and in shootings in neighborhoods across Florida.  Has the world gone crazy?  Maybe.  It is time that we each ask ourselves, “how am I contributing to this craziness?”  Is this catching? The answer is yes.

So how do we raise safe, healthy and drug-free kids in the current environment?  We increase the PROTECTIVE FACTORS and we decrease the RISK FACTORS in our children’s lives.

Our children are listening and watching us to see how they should act and react to all this distressing news. Here are some tips for how to help our kids through tough times.

Informed Families named Christine Stilwell the incoming Statewide Director of Programs, starting July 1st after current Program Director Dr. Valmarie Rhoden retires at the end of June. Stilwell, who has served in various capacities for Informed Families since joining the organization in 2000, is excited to take on a larger role. 

“Our mission of helping kids grow up safe, healthy and drug free is just as important than ever for Florida’s future,” said Stilwell. “I’m honored to serve as Program Director and delighted to continue to build upon the successes of several existing programs, most notably the Statewide Ambassador Program, which allows us to reach students, families and communities across Florida with year-round prevention messages through a network of dedicated volunteers.”

Stilwell attended Pennsylvania State University, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. She is a Certified Prevention Professional and Former Community Vice-President of Junior League of Greater Orlando. She will be transitioning from her job as Central Florida Regional Director.

Things tend to change in the summer, less structure and routine can cause frustration – unless you have some set principles in mind. Just because it is summer doesn’t mean you are off duty as a parent or should your kids expect to backslide.

Here are four F’s of parenting for a summer full of fun and less frustration, and yes, they are good all during the year too!