The Youth Leadership Group (YLG)

The Youth Leadership Group (YLG) is a group of motivated 7th and 8th graders who want to make a difference in the MAUMS school community. The group is supported by me and Dare Chammings from the Alliance for Community Transformations (ACT), the local substance use prevention coalition/organization. The YLG students take initiative to focus on healthy choices and creating awareness of risky behaviors to improve the school environment. Every two years they learn how to compare the MAUMS Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) results with the outcomes of the State wide results. From the outcome they pick 1 or 2 topics they find important to focus on for the next two years. In the last two years they chose “Creating awareness around the risks of Vaping” as the topic . This resulted in a digitally created poster which is posted in students and staff bathrooms all over the middle school building, called “Speaking of Crap” . Meanwhile they delivered an important contribution to the parent night at MAUMS “What you need to know about Vaping”, by providing a presentation (including PowerPoint slides!) about the risks of Vaping.