1. What are the highest-level intended outcomes of the Youth & Family Advisory Board (YFAB)?

Based on the contract, we are to have a board that is representative of youth, young adults, and adult members that are equally distributed among the six DBHDD regions. That group of people will provide community youth feedback, input, and support to statewide DBHDD prevention projects targeting those populations.  The youth that take part in the advisory board will receive a thorough and diverse education around substance use and misuse prevention, suicide prevention, mental health promotion, and resources.  (SAP: Increase Knowledge and perception of harm)

Ultimately, we hope to create an advisory board within each DBHDD region, holding at least ten members per region, with 1-2 elected state representatives for this region. We would like these individuals to act as educators and advocates for their communities. We hope to extend training to public speaking so that the members can act as prevention ambassadors in their region and county. This will allow them to speak on prevention topics at local and state-level conferences, school events, our annual Teen Summits, and beyond. We hope to extend training on policy and programming, so youth can provide input to their local CSBs on increasing youth engagement.

Overall, we hope that the Youth and Family Advisory Board will expose youth to behavioral health, ignite their passion for bettering their community, and create a future workforce in the state. We intend to see a decrease in the prevalence of new cases of opioid dependency, as this will create a social norm around youth speaking on substance use and suicide prevention.

2. What will the Youth and Families walk away with? 

They will walk away with training on related and relevant topics including, but not limited to, advocacy, substance use trends, the Strategic Prevention Framework, leadership, communication, teamwork, public speaking, and meeting facilitation. The YFAB will also be provided with opportunities to interact with other change agents around the state. YFAB members will be compensated for their participation. Specifically, they will be provided QPR Training, SAPS Training, Georgia Teen Institute, and Introduction to PCCG (https://pccga.org/credentialing/). Lastly, youth will walk away with a stronger sense of self and satisfaction knowing they are making a lasting impact on their state. Youth will feel a sense of leadership and responsibility in their community, increasing confidence, sense of purpose, and overall connectedness to their state, region, and county.

3. How does/could this relate to BH Workforce Development?

This is related to BH Workforce Development because the training that we are planning to provide is directly related to behavioral health and will offer an introduction and exposure to the many career options along the continuum of care. The youth that are selected will learn prevention skills, teamwork, and how to properly facilitate meetings and presentations, making them the potential next generation of BH employees. We can provide volunteer and internship opportunities to some. We can offer Prevention Apprentice (AP) Certification for some. We can offer the potential to develop and present a workshop at GSAS for some. 

4. What exposure will Youth and Families have to the Behavioral Health System? How about exposure to recovery stories/peers?

While we are Prevention-focused, Prevention is a key part of the full BH continuum of care. Part of the education that will be provided to members will be an understanding of where Prevention impacts all levels of the BH continuum and the specifics of how the DBHDD system operates. It is possible that some Youth will in fact be Peers themselves, and there will be opportunities throughout the experience to be exposed to recovery stories, especially from Youth Respect Institute speakers, Summit speakers, etc.

5. What outcomes are specific to each Region as well as the state as a whole?

The outcomes are the same for all six DBHDD regions at this time. The youth involved will have increased knowledge of prevention and prevention strategies, behavioral health, substance misuse and suicide prevention, shared protective and risk factors, and advocacy and leadership skills. For DBHDD, we hope to use the board to increase youth participation and reach in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs and media campaigns for youth. We will disseminate pre/post Surveys to determine changes in levels of knowledge, attitudes, and skills. We will assess levels of engagement and satisfaction surveys will be administered annually.

6. What is the ideal profile of qualifications for being on the Board? Lived experience, social followings, personal achievements? How is this different for Parents and Youth? Can this be outlined in the application?

Primary Prevention is defined as prior to diagnosis. We’d like to obtain a representative sample of youth from Georgia from different regions, races, ethnicities, ages, genders, etc. We’d like to have a good cross-section of Youth from within Universal (general population), Selected (high-risk groups), and Indicated (those already using or engaged in other high-risk behaviors) populations.

Please see the application; the eligibility criteria are listed for each group - link

7. Are the Parents and Youth in the same family? Do they have to participate together?

No, they do not. Please refer to applications for more details  - link

8. What is expected of Youth and of Parents? What are the benefits of their participation?

Please refer to the application website for important dates and eligibility criteria for each group. Please refer to question two for YFAB member benefits.  - link

Youth and Parents are expected to participate, attend meetings, give feedback, and be present in trainings. They will receive education, training, and stipends for their time.

9. What is the calendar for this program? Is it school-year based?

We will run the program based on the school year primarily. The mandatory summer camp, Georgia Teen Institute, however, will be held in June 2024.

10.  What are the evidenced-based models for running the Youth & Family Advisory Board (YFAB) effectively? How often do they provide updates and outcomes?

GUIDE, Inc. is a vendor that specializes in youth development, prevention, community change, and workforce development. They use a number of practices to engage and educate youth and young adults such as youth voice, positive feedback, and additional best practices in youth development.  Much of GUIDE’s work is informed by PreventEd [formerly the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NCADA)] which holds 50 years of developing, implementing, and evaluating research-based prevention programs (see https://prevented.org/programs/teeninstitute/)

11. How are schools/school counselors/universities involved?

Currently, schools are not involved. However, as the Youth and Family Advisory Board members receive training and expand, we would like to see involved youth inform their schools of their participation and work with their school counselors to disseminate prevention-centered media campaigns within their schools. We anticipate involving the YFAB in Red Ribbon Week activities, as a way for them to obtain exposure and networking opportunities with local universities. 

12. Could this be about Grade Levels versus ages?

No, based on our current work with Georgia Teen Institute and other youth development programs, ages work better than grade levels. Not all ages fall under the same grade, and in our efforts to be more inclusive during the recruitment process, we focus on age vs. grade level because not all young adults will attend college/have equal access to education.

13. What is the YFAB on DBHDD’s CAC?

YFAB youth and parents may be asked to participate in the OBHPFG’s current Community Advisory Council.

14.  How many events are there planned/budgeted per Region per year, and how many statewide?

There are no specific events planned/budgeted per region. Final YFAB member selections will be made by Tuesday, August 1, 2023. GUIDE will host YFAB’s Inaugural Induction Ceremony and first full group meeting on Wednesday, August 16, 2023, from 5 – 7 p.m. via Zoom. During the meeting, YFAB members will discuss and schedule upcoming board meetings. The inaugural YFAB cohort will attend Georgia Teen Institute in June 2024. I have also attached the approved YFAB Budget for more details. The meetings will be online except for the GTI training.

15. Is this more about offering input on marketing, or can it be also about program input and policy advocacy, and acting as regional influencers? Can we qualify and quantify each of these outcomes?

We intend for all participating individuals to act as Prevention Ambassadors for their region. We will expose them to our V4P Advocacy initiative which will provide education on policy analysis, advocacy, and program evaluation. We would like to use them as consultants for youth-centered marketing and programming, but our overarching goal is to create Prevention Leaders within each region, who will not only provide input in policy, programming, and marketing but also begin normalizing conversations about suicide/substance misuse.

We intend to measure marketing input through the number of impressions delivered after the dissemination of creative, the number of clicks to opioidresponse.info website generated by youth, reach of new programs, pre/post surveys, and focus groups for those who participate in programs in which the board has provided consulting. We can measure programmatic input by tracking recommendations, participation, and engagement. With additional funding, time, and staff/community relationships, we would be able to add additional evaluation of components such as becoming regional influencers. 

16.  How are we ensuring diversity and inclusion in the program through a larger recruitment effort? [MJ8]

 We have shared the YFAB opportunity during health fairs, held two information sessions during Georgia Teen Institute (a highly diverse environment), radio advertisements, our existing prevention provider network in all 6 regions and throughout Georgia, and through DBHDD region-specific information distribution. We also marketed the application utilizing social media influencers who have demonstrated appeal to LGBTQ, African-American, and Latin youth.