GAP Session set for April 15

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WURTLAND, Ky. — Northeast Guardians As Parents (GAP) will host their last GAP Session the school year with the topic, “Youth Trends and Substance Abuse.”

The workshop will be held April 15, 2016, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Greenup Co. Extension Office 35 Wurtland Ave., Wurtland, Ky.

The GAP Session workshop will feature Amy Jeffers M.A., CPS, Regional Prevention Center Director of Pathways. Tammy Steele, Tammy Steele, coordinator of Greenup Co. McKinney-Vento Program which hosts the GAP Sessions, said they seek to serve all individuals who step in to fill the need as guardians.

“With our GAP Sessions, these are things that we offer continuously throughout the school year. These are offered as quarterly sessions to GAP group, with GAP encompassing not only grandparents who are in second time parenting roles, but other guardians as well,” Steele said. “We have all facets who are raising children other than their own, including aunts, uncles, cousins, non-related you name it. We have children basically who are in homes headed by a lot of different guardians other than their biological parents.”

GAP seeks out topics that are relevant to the participants that will help them to be more effective as guardians.

“As far as the topics themselves, we do try to align our topics to specific areas that are of special interest to this specific population and we do that of course through our evaluation of each quarterly session as well as just our continual ongoing support and contact with the guardians that we are serving,” she said.

The upcoming workshop topic deals with a recurring topic due to the feedback of concern regarding the issue.

“Our topic this time is Youth Trends Youth Substance Abuse. This is actually a topic that we are repeating from five years back,” she said. “We do something normally along those lines every year at this particular session, and the one that we had at that time was very successful. We had a lot of great feedback and interest from that from grandparents and guardians who were a bit concerned about an increase in substance abuse not only amongst our adult population, but among our youth population.”

Additionally, the GAP Sessions also offer certification hours that are required for various areas.

“We are also able to offer certification hours to some who are required to have training hours to some who are required to have training hours each year through different facets of the foster agencies and different things,” she said. “And we have some who are required to take parenting classes who can attend our sessions and have those hours count toward their required hours of training. So I think that says a lot about our sessions, that we are able to offer those credit hours.”

Childcare will be provided. Lunch will be provided also, and door prizes will be awarded.

Those who are interested in attending are asked to RSVP by APRIL 8, to Becky Roark Russell Independent Schools FRYSC Coordinator at 606-833.1089 or by email to: [email protected].

By Portia Williams

[email protected]

Reach Portia Williams at 740-353-3101, ext. 1929, or on Twitter @PortiaWillPDT.

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