Meet
The Parent Corps

A powerful initiative that helps busy parents work together to protect their kids from illegal drugs. It’s unique. It’s simple. It’s powerful. And it works.

**How much do you really know about kids and drugs?**

FACT: Substance abuse is America’s worst healthcare problem. The cost of alcohol use alone by underage youth is estimated at $52.8 billion – without factoring in other drugs or the emotional pain and suffering that ripple across families and friends when a life is damaged or lost to addiction.

FACT: New epidemiological evidence shows that drug and alcohol addiction are rooted in adolescence. Teens who start drinking alcohol before age 15 are five times more likely to become addicted than those who start drinking at age 21. If the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other addictive drugs can be delayed past adolescence, the likelihood of developing an addiction is virtually zero.

**Think your kids are safe from drugs? Think again:**

Don’t think you’re immune to having your child use drugs. It can happen to anyone at any level. It happens to parents who thought they were doing everything right. The next thing they know, their kid is out of control with drugs.

~Paula Van Beek, Parent Leader

Parents are in total denial about what kids are exposed to. We come from a generation who dabbled with drugs in college in the '70s and many of us got through it just fine. But marijuana studies were nonexistent at the time. Today, scientists know a lot more about how drugs affect the brain. Marijuana is more powerful, and there are many more drugs available than before. Kids are trying drugs at a younger age, and parents do not realize how bad drugs are when kids use them at such a young age.

~Marsha Moritz, Parent Leader

FACT: A large body of research shows that parents have more influence than anyone else in preventing children and adolescents from initiating drug use. Kids who learn factual information about the effects of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco from their parents are half as likely to try these substances as kids who do not. Yet only one child in three reports receiving science-based drug education from his or her parents.

Here’s a fact you will be glad to know:

It is not inevitable that children will experiment with drugs. Parents can keep children healthy and drug free. The Parent Corps shows them how.

The Parent Corps is extremely effective drug prevention.

There’s nothing like it.

The Parent Corps is a unique drug-prevention initiative for parents. It helps today’s busy parents work together to keep their children healthy and drug free.

Unlike short-term courses on the dangers of drugs and ways to avoid use, the Parent Corps is an ongoing process.

What does Parent Corps offer parents?

As a parent, I do need to get involved no matter if it’s my job or not. I saw the opportunity there to be involved in the community, but also to give something to my children. I want them to look for a foundation about what we think at home and that we’re not just dormant about it, but we are active in doing something.

~Ana Gonzalez, Parent Leader

The Parent Corps offers parents a strong peer support network grounded by Parent Leaders who work in their children’s schools.

The Parent Corps arms Parent Leaders with science-based information about the dangers of adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use, teaching them how to educate other parents in their children’s schools and motivating parents to work together to protect their children.

When parents know how to identify the signs of drug use, what to look for and what to do about it, early experimentation doesn’t grow to full-blown addiction. And when parents have group support from other parents, they can better stand up to their kids.

By maintaining a constant presence at school every day, the Parent Corps reinforces the dangers of alcohol, illegal drugs, and tobacco every day, not just once a week or once a year.

What does Parent Corps offer school administrators?

The Parent Corps is a unique drug-prevention effort that works with very little effort on the part of the school administration.
The Parent Corps builds parent groups that support the school, rather than attack it as so often happens now. This has enormous value to school officials.

The Parent Corps employs Parent Leaders who work in their children’s schools every day, with parents of other children.

I have spent 23 years in education and have always felt that parents were the key to academic and life-long success. In one year’s time I have gone from a Parent Corps skeptic to a full-fledged member and believer.

~Bill Lamkey, Principal, Riverton Community High School, Riverton, Illinois

Intrigued?

To learn more about how the Parent Corps can help your children and your schools, read on.