Coalition's Parenting Social Norms Workgroup to meet March 22

This poster is part of the social norms campaign for parents developed by the Kelso STOP coalition.  It reflects their true community norm that most parents talk to their children about not drinking alcohol.

The Prevention WINS Parenting Social Norms Workgroup will meet tomorrow, Tuesday, March 22, 7PM at Seattle Children's Hospital.  Anyone who is interested in developing a social norms campaign for northeast Seattle parents to prevent youth substance abuse is welcome to participate.

Want more information about what the social norms approach to youth substance abuse prevention is all about?  Check out this video of Dr. Wesley Perkins explaining the social norms approach.

Social norms campaigns to prevent underage drinking

As Prevention WinS considers including a social norms campaign as part of a Drug Free Communities grant proposal, here is another great example of a campaign being implemented by the SPF-SIG coalition in Kelso, Washington.

What other coalitions are up to -- part 2

The SPF-SIG coalition coordinator from Wenatchee recently shared the following:

As I'm sure you all know, Apple Blossom Festival is a big thing here in Wenatchee. It kicked off last weekend with the Youth Parade and Youth Day in the Park.

Our coalition had an exciting Youth Day booth in the park -- they estimate 5,000 people attended that day. We had 2400 -- YES 2400 -- bottles of water to hand out. We had 1200 with our new parent message, "Congratulations Wenatchee Parents, 9 out of 10 have rules AGAINST underage drinking" and 1200 had our youth message, "MOST teens DON"T drink alcohol". We also had little bubbles for the little kids. We gave out ALL of the water bottles minus 2 cases of 24 bottles each. It was really fun talking to all of the parents and youth about the message. Students and staff helped put labels on all the bottles and Pepsi donated half of them.

Social norms among parents

In northeast Seattle, 90% of parents think that it is NOT OKAY for teenagers to drink alcohol, even if they don't get drunk. The norm among parents in our community is that underage drinking is unacceptable.

Here are some examples of a social norms marketing campaign targeting parents done by The Brick House Community Resource Center in Massachusetts:

While the Prevention WINS coalition is not doing a social norms marketing campaign, we can still use social norms messages as we communicate with others in our community. While it's important to let people know that our underage drinking rates continue to be higher than the state average, it is also important to let people know that MOST of our kids do not drink and that MOST of our parents do not think underage drinking is okay. These are powerful messages.

Social norms

I've been reading and hearing a lot about the successes of social norms campaigns when it comes to underage drinking. Here is an example of a social norms message from the National Social Norms Resource Center.


As you see, they emphasize that the norm in their community is that most high school students choose healthy options other than drinking. This is true in northeast Seattle. While we have high underage drinking rates among our high school students, most of them do not drink.

Some more examples:



More on social norms campaigns later . . .