Fourteen-year-old Adrienne Silverman is glad to be moving to Florida in September and to leave behind the "drama" at her school. But she does not want to say good-bye to her YADAP project.
Silverman was one of eight Loudoun County Public Schools students to attend the statewide Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention (YADAP) leadership conference from July 14-18. About 500 high school students from across the state worked in teams, usually consisting of four students, to identify an issue in their community and develop a Strategies to Act Now (STAN) plan to address that issue.
"The Strategies to Act Now plan is a format for students to take an idea pertaining to abuse prevention and present it in their own community," said Holly Chapel, leader of the Leesburg Uniting Communities and Youth Coalition (LUCY), according to a public schools statement.
The team Adrienne served on identified issues of diversity and racial tension in the county, while the second Loudoun team focused on providing safe after-school activities for youth.
"At Park View, there's wanna-be-gangs and they'll do stuff to other people, like pick fights. It's pretty pointless ... over nothing," said, Adrienne, who lives in Sterling. "There are some separate groups that don't want to interact with other races. ... There is so much drama at my school. It's really clique-y. People stay in their groups."
THE DIVERSITY TEAM decided to hold a multicultural celebration that would bring communities and schools together and include speakers and booths with cultural foods and cultural information. The team received a $250 mini-grant from YADAP to begin implementing the celebration.
"Maybe people my age don't know what's out there and automatically assume stuff. Maybe if we do this, people will stop having closed minds about stuff and want to get to know each other," Adrienne said. "People are going to have to get used to diversity because our community is growing."
The Loudoun teams are scheduled to present their plans Sept. 22 to Advisory Commission on Youth (ACOY) for adoption and support. To accomplish their plans, the students listened to motivational speakers, attended work-sessions and conferences, and worked in small groups. They learned leadership skills, ways to effect positive change and how they can become better role models. They assessed their communities from a youth perspective and identified the communities' unmet needs, then worked toward a consensus to develop a plan that they will implement during the school year and assess after implementation.
"They have to identify a need they feel to be the most pressing and develop a plan to that," said Charlene Johnson, director of the Youth Services Division and a member of the Advisory Commission on Youth (ACOY), which sponsored the diversity team, while the public schools sponsored the after-school team.
"All of this is about building teams," Johnson said. "My observation is they go down there as individuals and come back as a team. ... They know they have to sit at the table, have a voice and contribute. They understand this is a collaborative process."
LAST YEAR'S TEAM, the first for the school district, identified a need for weekend activities for high school students and organized a One Mik event in April to include speakers, basketball tournaments, dancing and other activities.
"We learned about caring about the rest of the county," said 16-year-old Jessica Walker of Purcellville, a participant last year who was one of 38 out of 400 students to be selected as a youth leader this year. The youth leaders answered student questions and helped them through the process of developing their STAN plans. "By the end of the week, it was so amazing to see kids from the groups care about what was going on at home," Jessica said about her youth leadership experience. "I liked seeing everyone caring, excited about going home to do their STAN plans."
Jessica describes the conferences she attended in the past two years as "an amazing experience." "It's fun and you learn so many things. It's a week of your life you'll never forget and never experience anywhere else."
"Pretty much, the day didn't stop. It was so much fun," Adrienne said. "It's so much fun to help people. It's just fun because you can see the impact you make."
THE 19TH ANNUAL YADAP conference was held at Longwood University in Farmville. Students from Loudoun were identified through a joint effort of LUCY, the public schools, the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services. The students could self-identify or be recommended.
"It's always important for youth to be involved," said Scott York (R-At large), chairman of the Board of Supervisors. "The concern is the apathy of young people [that] they can't make a difference in their community. We have seen great things from our youth who have gotten involved in the community."
"They get to contribute to their communities and get the recognition for that," Johnson said. "It's a buy-in. It's theirs, so they feel ownership over it. ... They truly are empowered."
As Adrienne said, "Youth have things to say, and they [adults] should hear it. There should be an opportunity for young adults to talk about their community."