Wellspring Center for Prevention
Promoting Healthy Living Through Education, Training & Advocacy
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Youth today have access to information resources undreamed of a decade ago. Moreover, the technology available to educators and youth continues to advance. As a result, advocates of electronic learning continue to push for changes in the basic classroom model. The goal of this course is to help educators gain an understanding and awareness of current and future educational technologies as well as the tools that are available now and how to use them.
A student walks into your classroom with another bruise. You believe it may be abuse again. The goal of this course is to provide you with the basic tools needed to recognize and respond to child abuse in the school environment. In addition, the course will help you learn what to do in the case of abuse, including legal obligations, understanding and implementing school policy, and making appropriate referrals to help the victim.
This online Bloodborne Pathogens course is an OSHA mandated training class for anyone who may come in contact with blood during your job. This course will enable you to stay compliant and avoid any fines. This one-hour course is online, self-paced, and only requires internet access and a browser. The certification is valid for one year.
As professionals in the field of prevention, it is critical to understand the ethics and legal issues that impact your work. In this time of few resources being directed toward prevention, it is even more important that Prevention Specialists ensure the services provided best meet the needs of their communities.
While providing evidence-based programming to individuals and families is central to the work of Prevention Specialists, nothing has a greater impact on the larger community than changes in policy. Whether they come in the form of school regulations, local ordinances, or state laws, policy changes have the ability to change community norms related to substance use in powerful ways.
Prevention Specialists accomplish many of their goals by bringing individuals and organizations together in the form of coalitions working toward common goals. Working with community-based organizations is a way to maximize impact while generating the best buy-in for your efforts.
Prevention Specialist professionals will have to possess the following knowledge, skills and/or attitudes, knowledge of information gathering techniques and data sources, ability to collect, organize and interpret data, knowledge of current prevention program best practices, models, and the continuum of care, knowledge of current theory and models and more.
As a Prevention Specialist, you will be responsible for implementing programs and managing projects. You must know how to assess the needs of your community, choose and deliver the proper services to respond to those needs, and then be able to evaluate your initiatives to ensure they achieve their goals. With the data you collect, you then need to be able to communicate your message effectively to your community stakeholders.
It is impossible to be an effective Prevention Specialist without a solid foundation of knowledge about all aspects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. Whether educating youth with and evidence-based curriculum or testifying before the legislature to advocate for system-wide change, you must have your facts straight and be able to communicate that knowledge effectively.
The initial purpose of this grant ion is to determine the reasons that may cause people to need early intervention or treatment services and reduce those factors while strengthening corresponding protective factors.
- Risk factors are characteristics at the biological, psychological, and other individual factor level, and the family, school, community, or cultural level that precede and are associated with a higher likelihood of negative outcomes.
- Protective factors are characteristics associated with a lower likelihood of negative outcomes or that reduce a risk factor’s impact. Protective factors can be considered positive countering events.
Many factors influence a person’s chance of developing a mental health and/or substance use disorder. Effective prevention focuses on reducing those risk factors and strengthening protective factors that are most closely related to the problem being addressed. Applying the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) helps prevention professionals identify factors having the greatest impact on their target population, in this case, youth ages 9-20 throughout New Jersey.
Through the Partnership for Success grant, Wellspring Center for Prevention has identified the following goals and objectives:
GOAL: To reduce the incidence and prevalence of behavioral health disorders among youth ages 9-20 throughout New Jersey.
- Objective 1: Decrease youth underage drinking, marijuana use and misuse of prescription drugs/opioids by youth ages 9-20 throughout NJ.
- Objective 2: Increase knowledge on the causes and effects of underage drinking, marijuana use, and misuse of prescription medications/opioids among youth, families and youth serving systems throughout NJ.
- Objective 3: Through the implementation of this initiative, policies and practices among youth serving systems will be improved to reduce the risk factors and enhance the protective factors associated with behavioral health disorders.
- Objective 4: Enhance the CSOC prevention infrastructure to ensure statewide prevention efforts reach youth.
Please return to our website to learn about any updates for this grant. If you’d like additional information, please contact Mara Carlin at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Member - Gerry Guidice
Gerry Guidice
Retired
Elected 2018
Secretary - Edward (Brad) Rodriguez
Edward (Brad) Rodriguez
Retired
Elected 2018
Wellspring Helps Celebrate National Night Out 2018
Melisa Damcevska, Preventionist I
For the past 35 years, annual National Nights Out across the country have been held in order to strengthen partnerships between police and the community, raise neighborhood morale and comradery, and create safer, more active communities.
In Middlesex County, New Jersey, the vision is no different.
National Nights Out events were held several communities throughout the county including Dunellen, Middlesex, Spotswood, Metuchen, South Brunswick, Milltown, South River, Piscataway, as well as Asbury Park in Monmouth County, among many others.
Community members were given the opportunity to explore resources their own town has to offer, meet and interact with others, and engage in games, activities, and plenty of food.
Wellspring staff was on hand at several of the Night Out events, armed with information about substance use prevention, as well as anti-stigma campaigns for substance abuse, information specifically for youth athletes and opioid use, and free giveaways and prizes.
While 2018 was met with a few challenges, including some short but torrential downpours, the message behind National Night Out and the dedication communities had was clear and admirable.
National Night Out is an opportunity for all members who live and work in a community to connect and interact and also learn about drug and crime prevention and general health and safety. In a world where technology and social media are fast becoming the main method of communication, it is important to remember how critical events like National Night Out are as ways to bond and learn more about the communities and people we surround ourselves with.
2018 Young Women’s Conference Recap
By Karli Rymer, Wellspring Intern
On February 28th, 2018, Wellspring Center for Prevention hosted the 14th annual Young Women’s Conference, My Journey, My Voice: Empowering Young Women, in New Brunswick, NJ.
It was a day filled with interactive and educational workshops that provided students with an opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and emphasized the importance of life and social skills. The goal of the conference is for the attendees to return to their schools and share the information with the rest of the student body through different programs and/or events.
The day began with provided breakfast and an amazing production, Lost Angels, performed by the Playground Theatre Project. This outreach program production touches on bullying, violence, racism, sexism, drug/alcohol abuse, depression, and 
suicide. The piece brings up issues current in today’s society and the struggles that young people face in their everyday lives. The student’s in the play learn to show compassion towards one another, for each person experiences hardship in their day to day lives. The young women who attended the conference were captivated and compelled by the relevance of the production to their own lives.
The production was followed by a series of educational and interactive workshops that covered bases from sexual health, general nutrition, substance abuse education, financial budgeting exercises and so on. These engaging workshops allowed the young women to work through topics together and apply them to their own lives. The hopes of these workshops is to enable the young women to take all of the information they learned and spread it amongst their peers in their own schools.
The theme of the 2018 YWC, “Take Your Mask Off,” was wrapped up and concluded in the most influential way by Wellspring’s own, Nicki Francis. She advised the young women to go forth as their true selves; taking their masks off and letting people see who they really are. By revealing your true selves, you allow yourself and others to establish close relationships. She went on to explain that we all carry our own baggage, some loads little and some loads great. Nicki revealed to the young women that like an iceberg, you can only see about 10% of someone while the other 90% lays under the surface. She emphasized the importance of being true to oneself and others around them to make the most of the life we are all living individually, but together.
It was evident to all the women who attended the conference, and the women who were responsible for putting the conference together, that they were pleased with the outcome, and achieved success in educating young women in fun and creative ways. The conference allotted for a remarkable day educating, inspiring, and connecting. It was truly a remarkable and valuable experience that all young women should get the chance to have.