Communities That Care

Posted on October 22, 2009

Have a 5th – 8th grader? This workshop is for you!

Five Town Communities That Care is once again offering the Guiding Good Choices (GGC) workshop series for parents of children who are aged 9-14.

GGC is a free, five-part series that is nationally recognized for its effectiveness in helping parents influence their children to make healthy choices. In research studies the program has been shown to improve parenting skills and the quality of parent-child interactions, to reduce adolescent substance abuse, to reduce adolescent depressive symptoms, and to reduce rates of self-harm by teens. In these studies, children of participants showed 40% lower rates of alcohol and marijuana use, 54% less progression to more serious substance abuse, a 26% greater likelihood of remaining drug free if they weren’t already using drugs, 38% lower rates of self-harm and 28% fewer feelings of ‘worthlessness.’

For local mom Lisa Ettinger, the strength of GGC is that “they made it clear that there is more than one way to parent. You develop guidelines that work for YOUR family, and then they give you the tools to open up or strengthen communication.”
Bruce Laycock shared, “The program offered varied ways of handling difficult situations. It gave different approaches to get kids more ‘plugged in’ to the family structure.”

Past participant Cheryl Cassidy shared, “The best thing about the course was getting together with other parents going through this challenging period with their kids. The whole issue feels a little more manageable now. I strongly encourage all parents to give this a try. It is well worth the commitment of time for both parents and children.”

Workshop participants will meet Thursday evenings, November 5 – December 10 (no meeting November 26), at Camden Hills Regional High School. All sessions begin at 5 PM (with a free dinner for the entire family from 5-5:30) and end at 7:30 PM. Free onsite childcare is offered while parents are in the workshops from 5:30 to 7:30.

For more information, or to register, call 236-9800 or email info@fivetownctc.org. Registration forms are available in local middle school offices at AVS, HES, LCS, and CRMS, or at http://www.fivetownctc.org/programs/guiding-good-choices/

See our calendar page for a calendar view of events, meetings, etc.