Dear Parent,

Hanover Cares is a coalition of Hanover County students, parents, community leaders, and citizens who are committed to building a community committed to raising substance-free youth. In partnership with the Hanover County Public Schools (HCPS), local law enforcement, other agencies and youth serving organizations in our county, we offer programming and outreach efforts aimed at reducing the number of youth in the county who use alcohol and drugs. One of the best examples of these partnerships in action is the Community Drug Forum held at Hanover High School earlier this school year.  We believe for our youth to maximize their potential, both in the classroom and in the community, they need to remain substance-free.

In order to measure the effectiveness of our efforts, it’s important to survey students about their attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors around various drugs and alcohol issues. If we’re going to invest coalition and county resources into youth prevention efforts, it’s important that we are committed to evaluating the impact those efforts are having on our students.  

Enclosed you will find a copy of the Hanover Cares Youth Behavioral Risk survey.  Due to the content and to ensure age-appropriateness, it is only being sent to HCPS parents who have students who are in the 8th, 10th, or 12th grade.  Please carefully review the survey in order to gain a full understanding of the nature and types of questions that are being asked of your student. 

To complete the survey, we’ve included a code your student will need to access and complete this survey online. By sharing this code with your student(s), you give your consent for them to participate in the survey.

The survey is confidential. We ask no information that would allow us to identify your individual student.  The results of the survey will be evaluated as 8th, 10th and 12th grade classes as a whole, and not by individual student or school unit to ensure complete anonymity.  The summary report will be shared with the HCPS and made available on the Hanover Cares website. The information gathered will be used on grant applications to seek funding for additional prevention resources for the county, and to support student and parent education efforts.

Hanover Cares wants to thank you in advance for encouraging your student to participate in this survey. Together we can make this a community committed to raising substance-free youth.  

Sincerely,

Keith Cartwright, Hanover Cares

rkcartwright@hanovercounty.gov


You can download a copy of the survey below:

The Not 4 Me campaign is in full swing again for 2015. This video challenge, put on by CBS6 and sponsored by Loveland Distributors, asks area teens to produce a 20 second video that demonstrates why underage drinking is not for them. They select 5 finalists and open voting to determine the ultimate winner. 

Hanover's own, Spencer D. of Lee Davis High School, has made it into the top 5 and he needs your votes! Last year, you may remember that Patrick Henry High School student, Jake , was a finalist and won the top prize for his video. Let's keep the Hanover streak alive and show Spencer and other students that we support his message, too! The winner will receive a $1500 cash grant  and the runner up will take home a $750 cash grant.

Vote for Spencer's video: IT JUST GETS IN THE WAY by January 25, 2015!

This past week, MADD held their annual law enforcement awards ceremony. The event honored impaired driving arrests and education efforts of nominees from counties and cities in the MADD Richmond area region. The awards were timely, as recent reports revealed Virginia experienced a double digit increase in alcohol related automobile fatalities from 2012 to 2013, the first year to year increase in 6 years.  

Hanover Cares has partnered with the Hanover County Sheriff's Office and the Ashland Police Department on a grant project since 2012 that targets the reduction of alcohol related crashes involving 15-24 year olds. Last year, the number of such crashes decreased over 15% thanks to local law enforcement agencies conducting DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols funded by the grant. 

It's that shared commitment to making our roads safe that makes Hanover Cares proud to recognize the efforts of all the law enforcement personnel in our community. They remain committed to protecting our families from the too frequent tragedies that occur at the hands of drunk drivers. Although there were only 3 officers recognized at the MADD awards, we know they represent the efforts of many, and the commitment of the Hanover County Sheriff's Office and the Ashland Police Department to keep drunk drivers off our county streets and highways. 

We are also grateful for this wonderful awards program put on by MADD. Their willingness to recognize the collective efforts of all of our law enforcement teams in the Richmond region is a wonderful reminder of how important it is that we all work together to keep our communities safe.

Thank you all!

 

Second from the right is Hanover County Sheriff's Deputy Matthew Keeley who was one of three county law enforcement officers recognized at the event. Thank you Deputy Keeley. 

Second from the right is Hanover County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Mahler who was one of three county law enforcement officers recognized at the event. Thank you Deputy Mahler. 


Missing from the photos above is Ashland Police Officer Thomas O'Dea who was not able to attend the ceremony. Captain Anthony Callahan accepted the award on his behalf. 

"Be like me, drug and alchol free!" That was the message to Hanover County youth attending the many middle and high school open house and orientation events this past week. With help from coalition volunteers and 7th Up student volunteers, Hanover Cares distributed over 2000 tote bags and fliers at all eight Hanover County middle and high schools.

7th UP is a leadership and substance abuse prevention program that partners high school students at Atlee High School and Hanover High School with Oak Knoll Middle School and Chickahominy Middle School 7th grade classrooms to promote healthy decisions regarding drugs and alchohol. 7th Up students stay involved in a variety of activities and serve as role models for drug and alcohol free lifestyles. 

If you would like more information about the 7th Up program at Atlee or Hanover high schools, please contact Susan Robertson at srobertson@hanover.k12.va.us.

On August 11th and 12th, several adult and youth leaders from Hanover County participated in a Lead and Seed training conducted by Keith Cartwright of Hanover Cares. The training was conducted at Randolph-Macon College. Lead and Seed is a program that encourages and provides the framework for adult leaders in a community to empower youth to make healthy decisions around drugs and alcohol. More importantly, it teaches them to plant seeds in the lives of their peers we all hope will grow into healthy decisions by them as well. 

Eight adults and 7 Hanover County students took part in the training. They spent two days learning the steps to developing, implementing and evaluating plans that will reduce and prevent the numbers of students in our community who are using alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. In the final segment of day two of the training, the youth and adults worked together in three teams to begin planning 3 projects they will work to implement over the next year. Two of the projects were expanded from plans our two teams brought back from the YADAPP Conference earlier this summer (Hanover County Students Attend YADAPP Conference), and the other was a plan 2 Atlee High School Seventh Up students introduced at the training.  Watching the teams work together lent hope to the Hanover Cares vision that one day Hanover County will be community committed to raising substance-free youth. 

Moving forward, the youth involved in the training, along with other area students who are committed to the Lead and Seed program, will become the foundation of a team of youth who will work closely with the Hanover Cares board of directors and coalition. The youth coalition is called Teens Care Too. If you are and adult, student or business interested in working with either the Hanover Cares Coalition or supporting the Teens Care Too team, please reach out to us through the link below:

Contact Us

FRONT ROW LEFT TO RIGHT:

Jonathan Walsh (Atlee High School), Lauren Wolfgang (Lee Davis High School), Jennifer Godbolt (Atlee High School), Lauren Gagliardone (Atlee High School), and Zoe Arieux (Patrick Henry High School).

BACK ROW LEFT TO RIGHT

Keith Cartwright (Lead and Seed Trainer), Nikki Gooding (Hanover High School), Beth Royal (Stones Throw Studios), Martha Lambert (Hanover CSB), Cristi Cousins (MADD), Michael Hottman (Local Real Estate Agent and Counselor), Laura Robertson (Hanover County Community Services), Robert Smith (New Kent County Schools), and Susan Robertson (Hanover County Schools). 

MISSING FROM PHOTO

Morrow Berberich ( Lee Davis High School) and Dana Gaskin (Hanover County CSB).

Last week, 8 students representing all four Hanover County high schools attended the annual Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Project (YADAPP) at Longwood University. This was the 30th anniversary of the youth leadership conference, and Hanover Cares was grateful for the opportunity to have some outstanding local students attend this milestone event. 

While at the conference, our Hanover students connected with other students from around Virginia. All of them shared a common interest in leading initiatives in their communities that encourage substance-free youth. The teens bonded through a week of fun activities, workshops and empowering speeches. Two adult leaders from the Hanover County Sheriff's Office attended the conference with the youth. This is the third consecutive year that deputies Steven Appouh-Hester and Rick Chapman have volunteered to provide adult supervision and guidance for our Hanover County youth at the conference. Hanover Cares is grateful for their role in the experience, and for the support the Hanover County Sheriff's office puts behind making this an experience that impacts the lives of our youth every year.  

The students returned from the conference with plans to implement projects they hope will prevent their peers from getting caught up in problems with alcohol and drugs. Adult leaders from our Hanover Cares team will begin meeting with the youth once each month to help them successfully complete their projects. Whether it's teaching them leadership skills or helping them identify necessary resources, the adults will strive to empower these youth leaders to make a difference in the lives of their classmates.  

All 8 of these students went through an application process and interviewed with 5 adults from the Hanover Cares team. We're very proud of the work they put in last week developing their plans, and we look forward to witnessing the impact they will have on our community over the next year.

If you have an interest in being a part of the YADAPP team and help us implement the projects, whether a student or an adult, please go to our contact us page and send us a message. 

If you didn't get a chance to volunteer with us recently at the Ashland Strawberry Faire, there's great news. Hanover Cares will be at the Hanover Tomato Festival July 12 from 9AM - 4PM.  Once again, we will be handing out bottles of water containing a message we hope will make our young people think twice about drinking and driving.  This initiative is a part of a grant Hanover Cares received in 2012 to reduce alcohol related crashes in Hanover County involving 15-24 year old drivers. Last year, thanks to outreach efforts like this one, and additional law enforcement operations conducted by the Hanover County Sheriff's Office and the Ashland Police Department and funded through the grant, crashes involving alcohol and this age group were down 12% from 2012 to 2013. The 38 total crashes was the lowest number since 2010. 

To continue this trend, we need your help spreading the word about the dangers of drinking and driving, especially when it comes to our young people. If you would be interested in working a shift at the Tomato Festival passing out water and literature, please sign up at the link below. Our efforts are making a difference. 

Sign up here to volunteer to help Hanover Cares at the 2014 Hanover Tomato Festival.



  

On June 7, 2014, Hanover Cares will be sharing a message discouraging drinking and driving with patrons at the Ashland Strawberry Faire.  For the past two years, in partnership with the Ashland Police Department and the Hanover County Sheriff's Office, Hanover Cares has been working to reduce the number of alcohol related crashes in our county involving 15-24 year old drivers. In addition to increased sobriety checkpoints and DUI patrols conducted by local law enforcement, Hanover Cares has been working to educate the community about both the dangers of drinking and driving, and the legal consequences if caught and charged. All of the efforts are funded by a federal grant.

Hanover Cares will be distributing water at the Strawberry Faire encouraging responsible decisions around drinking and driving. We are looking for volunteers to work 2-hour shifts to help us hand out the water and other information about our coalition. If you are interested in giving us a hand and helping us get a message out that will help keep our county roads safer for everyone, please sign up at the link below.

Volunteer Sign-up For the Strawberry Faire 

Parents, can you answer the following questions:

1. Do you know the meaning of "dabbing," "double cup" or "pharm party"?

2. If your kid wears a T-shirt asking "Where's Molly?" or "Got kush?" do you know what they're talking about?

3. Why is hand sanitizer causing trips to the ER?

If not, we encourage you to watch the video below and educate yourself. The best way to prevent your kids from using drugs is to have ongoing conversations with them. To best do that, you need to know what they know.