Teens need AWARENESS

New local program utilizes peers to help curb drinking and driving
BY PAT ROWE Ulster County Press

PHOTO BY MATT PETRICONE
TEAM WORK. Left to right, Stephen Bielecki, administrator, Marie Shultis, adult consultant, and Rose Hallinan, coordinator of mentor group.

Graduation and prom parties are only a few days away. Do you have someone in your family under the age of 21 who will be somewhere drinking or maybe getting in a vehicle with someone who has? Will your comment of “Goodbye,
I love you and don’t drink,” possibly fall on deaf ears?

Often it’s the words of those who are close to your child’s own age that hit home, and there is a new group in town who will gladly offer those words.

AWARENESS Alcohol Program, a teen group, will be offering with the Ulster County Sheriff’s office a car simulator program at the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center on May 30 between 1 and 3 p.m. The car is a training tool that simulates the consequences of an inattentive driver who texts, talks on their cell phone and/or drives while impaired from alcohol or drugs. AWARENESS Alcohol Program is an education program and, according to Rosendale Town
Justice Robert Vosper, it is a program that has been needed for a long time – and one he will refer youth to when the opportunity presents itself.

“Marie Shultis from the town of Hurley singlehandedly got this movement going,” said Vosper. “As a result of her efforts there are a group of teens who have become trained by professionals to work with kids their own age, to educate their peers and provide a positive, preventative step in the right direction.”

Shultis said one of the adolescent driving forces behind the program is Onteora Central School Senior Class President Rose Hallinan. Another teen is Stephan Bielecki, who is currently the Teen Administrator of the AWARENESS mentoring group. Both teens are Onteora students, though the school does not back the program or affiliate itself with the program.

“Stephen lost one of his best friends in a tragic car accident last year,” said Shultis. “Stephen wanted to see a program formed that would reach out to teens involved in the incident. His idea is to attack the problem of underage drinking and driving by educating underage drinkers to the real dangers they and others could face if they made the mistake of drinking and driving.”

AWARENESS Alcohol Program actually started operation in March of this year. The Ulster County Sheriff’s office provides space for them at the County Law Enforcement Center. Shultis said the space actually has a model jail cell and each participant gets to sit in it for a very brief, but impacting, period of time.

The group of teens who take part in the education component have all been trained by a licensed Substance Abuse professional and they continue their work under supervision during the monthly educational classes. The next twohour
program is May 23 between 7-9 p.m.

“The program currently has no county or outside funding and relies strictly on volunteers,” said Shultis. “One teen takes on the role of the Coordinator, including all paper work, setting up community service with alternative sentencing, following up and reporting to judges at
the completion of the community service, and creating and maintaining a data bank. If an offender is a repeat offender, the curriculum will be slightly different.”

Vosper said Shultis and the teens presented the program to local Magistrates and the majority were impressed and said they would use the program when someone under-aged might come before them. Vosper said he has used it
already, and he knows other local judges have as well.

“The government has put out programs, say the Social Host Offender Law, and say there should be an Alcohol Awareness program and that someone on the state level will be starting it – and it does not happen,” said Vosper. “We at one time had a program at Golden Hill, and one year the county needed to do a budget cut and guess what was cut.” New local program utilizes peers to help
curb drinking and driving Teens need AWARENESS