PROGRAM HELPS PARENTS DRAW LINE AGAINST DRUG ABUSE

Lorna Parmlee remembers seeing as a child an anti-drug poster of an arm
with an intravenous needle stuck in it.

"That poster scared me, it was about heroin use," said Parmlee. "Drugs were
around back then in the 1970s...but everything is so prevalent now, you
have to start young, educating them young."

As Parmlee watches her 11-, 8- and 2-year-old children grow, she worries
about their exposure to drugs and wants to do something now to prevent
potential problems, she said. Through a program offered by the Governor's
Prevention Partnership, Parmlee and dozens of other Hartford parents are
learning skills to better communicate with their children regarding drugs,
peer pressure and violence.

Preparing for the Drug-Free Years is a substance-abuse and violence
prevention program that has been conducted over the past two years by
trained parent educators at Burns, Annie Fisher and M.D. Fox elementary
schools.

The centers, supported by the Village for Families and Children, provide
weekly training sessions to parents, encouraging regular family meetings,
the development of refusal skills, conflict resolution strategies and other
skills that help develop healthy behavior. Staff members of the Governor's
Prevention Partnership translated the program into Spanish so more parents
could participate.

"As my eldest daughter gets more and more pressure from her peers, it's
evident that the exposure [to drugs] is there," said Parmlee of her
daughter Chelsea. "Children are our future, so we have to train them for
when they grow up, they can learn to deal with these issues with their own
children."

During an end-of-the-year celebration held Wednesday at the Village for
Families and Children, participating parents and program coordinators
gathered to celebrate the completion of the program. Along with an awards
ceremony, which recognized the accomplishments and dedication of the
participants, parents put on a skit to show all they had learned.

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but have
always been very good at imitating them," the parents said during the skit.
"Listen to them, teach them about peer pressure, drugs, smoking, gangs and
death."

Stephanie Joseph, who took the training at Annie Fisher, has young
children, aged 2 and 4.

"I thought, `Why do my kids need to know about drugs?' but the longer I
stayed, the more I learned," she said. "I didn't know how important it was
to sit everyone down and talk about things."