Tyrone Borough Police have thrown their support behind a drug safety program offered through Community Safety Net™.
According to information on its web site, Community Safety Net™ is a revolutionary safety awareness and education program that creates a network of concerned individuals who want to protect children and help save lives.
The program is designed to increase awareness, while bringing communities together for the benefit of children. Parents, community leaders, local businesses, and schools all play a key part in the process.
Community Safety Net™ actually offers programs on a number of safety issues including drug, fire, personal and rural safety. Tyrone’s effort is currently focusing on the drug safety program.
The web site explained when a community organization (such as Tyrone Borough Police) chooses to offer one of the safety programs to the local children, one of the organization’s program coordinators visits the community, and gets to know the sponsoring organization. The coordinator also visits local businesses and merchants to build awareness and raise support for the program on the organization’s behalf. In return for their support, merchants receive Community Safety Net stickers and posters to put in their windows, which identify them as program sponsors. Each supporter also receives a listing in the community’s safety books.
When the campaign is complete, programs are delivered to the sponsoring organization, which are then distributed to children and their families.
The campaign being supported by Tyrone Police is called Drug Safety: The Choice is Yours. It is designed to educate young people on the dangers of drug abuse. The program offers information on alcohol, tobacco, ecstasy, marijuana, and other illicit drugs.
“It calearly exposes the hazardous nature of drugs from tobacco to steroids,” said Community Safety Net™ territory manager Glenn Fox. “It gives the kids powerful strategies for living drug free.”
Tyrone Police Chief Joseph Beachem said, “This department is very involved in fighting drug crimes. We want to add another aspect to that. We want to educate the kids in the 10 to 13-year-old range and help inform parents.”
Beachem said officers would keep some of the program books with them and distribute them on specific police calls where they feel it is appropriate. He also said he planned to approach the Tyrone Area School District Police for possible distribution.
Beachem said he hoped the program might even reach children younger than age 10.
He said, “If you can reach a kid between seven and 10-years-old, that’s when they are most susceptible to learning. We want to get the message to them at that point in their life that drugs will lead you down the wrong road.”
The Community Safety Net™ web site described the program as a family-friendly resource that includes:
• a 144-page full-color instructional book full of information, tips, facts, and quizzes;
• a parents’ section that draws attention to the warning signs of drug abuse;
• snapshots of illegal drugs and the health hazards associated with them and
• a letter-writing contest that gives kids a chance to win a computer.
The goal of the program is to get the information out to 350 children in the community in the pre and early teen age groups.
Community Safety Net™ is part of Gateway Publishing Co. Ltd., a family-owned business, based in North Dakota that was founded by William DesJarlais in 1965.
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On the net: www.communitysafetynet.com.
