The EmpowerED Year in Review
By: David Sherrell
As I write this, spring has sprung and summer is looming!
We’re all approaching the end of the school year, with that crazy mix of anxiety over exams and grades and breathless anticipation of a real break from the weekly grind. We’re trying to stay focused on the here and now, even as the day we can toss our backpacks down with that huge sigh of relief takes up more and more space in our heads. Maybe some of us are brimming with excitement about final projects and papers, or making plans with friends and family for summer trips and camps and clubs. For me, the end of a school year always brings reflection on the past nine months of hectic life and the question “How have I changed while I was paying attention to other things? This year, the changes are a bit more obvious as I took on an exciting new job alongside my studies in public health. So now seems like a good time to reflect on the birth of the EmpowerED Resource Library and how I came to be your purveyor of prevention parables and principles.
Last fall, when I needed to find some part-time work and thought to look in on one of my favorite former bosses, Prevention Academy had just completed training its first group of Prevention Specialists and was beginning to serve the students of Delaware County. I approached Kiersten Simon to learn more about Prevention Academy and to offer whatever services she might find useful, since she knew my skills; she was open to bringing me on board. We began the discussions that led to the creation of EmpowerED – an online resource space for youth interested in learning more about prevention-related issues. She also requested my services as a classroom Prevention Specialist. I first worked in schools from 2009-2020 (with Kiersten as my boss from 2015-2018) – at which point a pandemic, a move, and an eventual return to graduate school kept me away from the students I so loved to work with.
I was eager to get back to it!
Although the last full year of classwork for my degree limited my availability, I was able to work with students again a few times. I got to learn from you how your worlds have changed in the time I was away. I asked as many questions as I answered. You made me laugh; you made me think. You helped me knock the rust off my skills as an educator and in return, hopefully I helped you quest for the information you needed to make healthy decisions for yourselves now and in the future. I discovered some differences between the middle- and high-schoolers of today and pre-pandemic 2020. For one, you know a lot more about your brains and how to protect your mental health. You’re more comfortable advocating for yourselves and each other when you see the need. Many more of you are either planning to begin or are already beginning careers as influencers in addition to whatever other plans your futures may hold. These changes brought great joy to my work, as I was able to have pretty advanced discussions with some class periods about how alcohol and other drug use during adolescence fit into the worlds you have shaped with this knowledge and these plans. I watched the wheels turn in your heads. That’s really the most important part of my job in the classroom, as a Prevention Specialist – not to make you decide one way or another, not to tell you what to do or what not to do, but to provide you with information and perspective and to ask the right questions to help you think about these decisions critically.
As the year progressed, the leadership of Prevention Academy and I discussed what I and other Prevention Specialists were hearing as we taught – what your perceptions and concerns were. We began using that intelligence to inform and shape EmpowerED. We want to write to you about the things that matter to you, delivering content supported by solid research and geared to be as useful to you as possible. We noticed that, though the Internet is full of information about drugs and about substance misuse prevention, little of it is framed for teens and almost none of it is delivered with your concerns and perspectives in mind.
Like our powerful podcast, Choices Unfiltered, EmpowerED has spent this year launching with joy and finding our footing as we ran. Prevention Academy began the year with a small handful of Prevention Specialists and a lot of classes to teach; I began the year as a graduate student with some space in my schedule to fill and a job to find. Prevention Academy now has a regular podcast and regularly shared articles, a larger body of Prevention Specialists with more to come, and a mission to keep growing. I’m closing out the year thrilled and honored to be a part of that mission, to bring my public health knowledge and history of work in prevention to serve a new generation of students in the ongoing quest for wellbeing.
We began using that intelligence to inform and shape EmpowerED. We want to write to you about the things that matter to you, delivering content supported by solid research and geared to be as useful to you as possible. We noticed that, though the Internet is full of information about drugs and about substance misuse prevention, little of it is framed for teens and almost none of it is delivered with your concerns and perspectives in mind.
I’ll be in touch throughout the summer with some thoughts about staying healthy and making the most out of the period of rest. Until the next time, congratulations on reaching the end of another year! For those of you transitioning on, from middle to high school, from high school to college or whatever is next, or making some other big change, I wish you courage and curiosity as you make the switch.
Enjoy your summers!
