It’s never too early to promote safe, healthy and drug free living for kids. Just ask Ambassador and early childhood specialist Jacynta House, who serves as director of the Beautiful Mindz Preschool in Miami Gardens.

“I think everyone needs prevention education,” said House. “If we educate children when they are young, they will be less likely to do drugs. My goal as an early childhood educator is to give children the best life possible.”

When asked whether she thought that children in preschool are too young to be exposed to drug prevention, Jacynta quickly replied with a definitive “no.”

“They see drug abuse everywhere because our school is in a low income, high crime environment,” said House. “Every morning, I have to clean the playground because there are bags and wrappers everywhere from drug use. I want our children to seek a different, healthier life for themselves.”

Many of the students who attend the preschool have parents who work long hours, some of whom pick up their children as late as 8pm, and many come from insecure home environments. Jacynta dedicates herself to creating a stable and safe learning environment for these young children, ages zero to five, every day.

Goldsboro Elementary Magnet School in Sanford, Florida struck gold when they recruited Wing Isom to join the school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) over seven years ago. Now, Isom serves as the school’s PTA President and more recently, she has taken on a new role: Informed Families Ambassador.

Calling Isom “an involved parent” is a vast understatement – and calling her an average Informed Families Ambassador would be equally incorrect. Since the fall of 2015, in her short time as an Informed Families Ambassador, Isom has delivered all three Informed Families campaigns (Family Day™, Red Ribbon Week®, and Lock Your Meds®) with great thought, energy and enthusiasm to the children and families at Goldsboro Elementary.

“We all talk about issues facing our children, but I love doing something about them,” said Wing. “As an Informed Families Ambassador, I connect parents at our school with wonderful prevention resources and I try to do it in a way that works best for our particular school.”

Informed Families, as we know it, would not exist without strong, passionate and resourceful partners. One such partner is Dr. Jessica Spencer, project director of The Manatee County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, locally known as “Drug Free Manatee.”

A true prevention advocate, Dr. Spencer aims to reach children well before drugs and alcohol enter the picture.

“What I like most about my work is the opportunity to educate and promote overall health and wellness to people in our community and in our State,” said Dr. Spencer. “Educating our communities about the dangers of alcohol and other drugs is so important. We are living in an illness-driven society right now where children are being taught that for every ailment or challenging feeling, there’s a pill to solve the problem. There will be bumps in the road, but you don’t have to reach for a bottle, pill or plant (cannabis) to make you feel better.”

In her eighteen plus years in the field of prevention and addiction, Dr. Spencer has worked in various capacities at the local, regional and statewide level to help kids grow up safe, healthy and drug free. She is well known in the Florida prevention arena for her work in fight against marijuana legalization, having served as Statewide Coalition Director of the “Vote No on Amendment 2” initiative. In her role as Project Director at Drug Free Manatee, Dr. Spencer plans, implements and evaluates activities and programs that positively impact the health and wellness of all Manatee County citizens.

This January, Informed Families is partnering with Publix Pharmacy to deliver the Lock Your Meds® campaign, which aims to reduce prescription drug abuse by making adults aware that they are often the unintended suppliers of abused prescription medications.

Lock Your Meds asks individuals to secure their medication, take regular inventory to ensure nothing is missing, safely dispose of unused or expired medication and share the message with friends and family.

The campaign will be featured in 646 Publix Pharmacy stores across Florida through counter displays and printed pharmacy receipts containing a message about Lock Your Meds. This is the fourth year in a row that Publix, the fastest growing grocery chain in America, is collaborating with Informed Families to reduce prescription drug abuse in Florida's communities. 

We live in a country where the availability of prescription drugs has increased dramatically in our neighborhoods, schools and even in our homes. Both adults and children are susceptible to improperly using prescription drugs, which can be a problem because of the discreet side effects and behaviors that these individuals can hide for months or years, if not seen with a trained eye.

While the news headlines are dominated by illicit drugs like Cocaine, Meth and Heroin, the sleeping giant of prescription drug abuse has cased more overdose deaths than all of these combined.

Here are 7 important facts about Prescription Drug Abuse:

What is Prescription Drug Abuse?

While most people think that pills inside of little orange bottles are safer when compared to street drugs like cocaine and heroin, it is still illegal and highly risky to use unprescribed drugs. In many cases the effects of prescription drug abuse can result in more addictive characteristics. The availability of prescription drugs tends to make these more easily abused in households with children in middle and high school. However, abuse can happen at any age and you may have experienced borderline abuses yourself if you have engaged in any of the following behaviors:

A new year...a new you. While you are considering your New Years resolutions, consider this: Prescription drug abuse is one of the biggest epidemics in the 21st century. Home medicine cabinets are filling up faster than ever, putting young children and teenagers in harm's way. Start the new year off right and resolve to make a difference in your home or community by starting the new year off right with these five tools.