One of our main goals is to empower young people to make healthy choices. We call this "peer prevention."

As part of the peer prevention program, we offer the following activities:

• Overnight leadership and prevention retreats for 7th through 12th grade students
• A full day leadership and prevention retreat for 6th graders
• Coordination of fun drug-free activities after school and on weekends
• State and local trainings for youth, such as the Governor's Youth Leadership Conference, the Teen Leadership Conference, and the Vermont Kids Against Tobacco Rally
• Student-led awareness activities such as "Ghost-Out" and "Mock Crash" to raise awareness about the dangers of impaired driving; "Red Ribbon Week" to raise awareness about drug use among middle school youth and "Dialogue Nights" to help youth and community adults communicate about tough issues.
• Coordination of prevention curricula such as "Teenage Health Teaching Module" at the High school level; "Life Skills Training" at the middle school level; and "Know Your Body" at the K-6 level. And,
• Facilitation of tobacco awareness and cessation programs at the middle school and high school.

There are hundreds of ways for students to get involved in peer prevention activities. For more information, please contact CY's full-time Youth Prevention Educator, Margo Austin at 383-1219 or email at maustin@cssu.org.

"Friends are the best natural high ever."