National Prevention Week begins with a seminar and ends with a family fun fair
A seminar based on a mom's experience and a family fun fair with games, crafts, and puppies
This week is SAMHSA’s National Prevention Week, May 7-13, 2023, and in the Stateline, it features attractive activities: a seminar based on a mom's first-hand experience but also a family fun fair with games, crafts, and puppies.
It's sometimes called National Drug Prevention Week, but the SAMHSA and Live R.E.A.L. Foundation call it "A Celebration of Opportunity."
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the federal agency that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. The Live R.E.A.L. Foundation was founded in Roscoe, IL in 2021 by Beverly Pomering to promote alternatives to mental illness & substance use stigmas.
On Thursday night at the Roscoe Township Community Center, the Live R.E.A.L. Foundation will begin their three-part seminar series on the reality of drugs, risks of addiction and overdose, resiliency and recovery resources. The series is titled "It’s Time to Get REAL About Drugs, We’re Not in the 80s Anymore!"
The first session is called Risks & Rudiments, where the founder and executive director, Bev Pomering, will be sharing her experiences as the mom to Alex Pomering who died at 20 years old from fentanyl in August 2019. It will be held Thursday, May 11, 7-9 p.m.
The OMNI Prescription Playbook will also be presenting their program on risks of youth substance abuse through prescriptions.
The other two sessions will be presented separately on June 8 and then July 20, both 7-9 p.m. at the same location, Roscoe Community Center in Founder’s Park, 4562 Hononegah Rd, Roscoe.
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Saturday's Family Fun Fair at Roscoe's Leland Park will close out National Drug Prevention Week by highlighting organizations that offer services in the social, emotional, physical, and mental health fields - giving kids & their families opportunities to discover ways to build life resiliency through developing stress management skills with hobbies, interests, sports, arts, and in other ways.
The Saturday afternoon event, 1-4 p.m., will offer free fun for the entire family, with a caricature artist, a puppy kissing booth, children's games, sports & hobby activities, make & take craft vendors, a first responders presence along with substance use prevention vendors, mental wellness resource vendors, disability resource vendors, retail vendors, food truck, and more. Leland Park, at 5727 Broad St and 10701 3rd St, is also the site of the Roscoe Lions Fall Festival in September.
The Live R.E.A.L. Foundation is a registered 501c3 charity founded January 23, 2021 by Beverly Pomering in Roscoe, IL. Their mission is building a network of community resources to increase trauma-informed resiliency skills by teaching the dangers of mental illness & substance use stigmas, the vulnerability around cyber use, the truth about new millennial drugs, and training individuals on opioid overdose death prevention. Programs include opioid education and naloxone training classes, education seminars, community awareness events, and traumatic death grief support groups.
