Our Services: Core
Prevention

Wedgwood's core prevention services have set us apart as the leader in West Michigan. These publically funded programs are well known and respected by many area school districts, and the numbers prove it. We conduct 300 groups a year in school, community centers, churches, and judicial departments.

Our goal is to strengthen our youth and community by developing internal and external asssets that increase kids' resiliency and put them on the path to a bright future. We understand that family support and involvement are crucial to this process.

Transforming Services Prevention Programs
Wedgwood also offers additional Transforming Prevention Services that are funded 100% through donor contributions to the Children's Hope Annual fund and receive no public funding.

These programs include:

• Pure Passion for Fashion (P2) engages teens through multi-media fashion shows featuring modest fashions, live music, and a high energy message about the benefits of healthy decision making.
• Teens On Track reaches urban youth through neighborhood clubs that facilitate making better decisions.
• The Manasseh Project is an outreach ministry of Wedgwood dedicated to ending the sexual exploitation of young men and women in West Michigan.

Substance Abuse Prevention Education:

We are presently facilitating ATOD (Alcohol, tobacco and other drugs) prevention-education groups in Kent County Schools, in the court system, and in multiple community centers and churches throughout Kent County.

• The Botvin Life Skills curriculum is used with middle and high school aged youth. These groups of youth meet for 15 sessions.  Many of these groups are facilitated in alternative high schools or in the court system.

• Project Success, a new contract with Network 180, is a school-based substance abuse prevention and early intervention program that places highly trained prevention specialists in the schools who work with adolescents individually and in small groups; conduct large group prevention/education discussions and programs; train and consult on prevention issues with school staff; coordinate the substance abuse services and policies of the school and refer and follow-up with students and families needing substance abuse treatment or mental health services in the community.  We have 8 years of secured funding for Project Success.
  
  
• Streetwise: Wedgwood Christian Services has developed a unique and innovated program to engage middle school youth in Life Skills programming, during the summer months.  For 2 weeks, youth learn valuable basketball skills from area coaches mixed with skills for life from Wedgwood Christian Services with a tournament concluding the event.  This program is facilitated in the community each summer.

Studies show that kids in west and southwest Michigan are trying alcohol as early as age twelve. The sooner you talk, the easier it is.

Click on the red cup!

This site not only has links to a variety of parent tools, it gives local parents the chance to hear and share experiences, techniques, and advice with other local parents on how they can educate their children and improve family time.

Be heard. Have a voice.
Share what you know with other parents, post on a variety of topics, and find links to helpful resources.

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Life Skills Education Groups: provide teens ages 12-17 with a series of eight-week classroom or after school interventions based on positive decision making.

• Abstinence Education: A quality approach to abstinence education that considers the whole person. Program elements include decision making, setting goals, discussions on the influence of alcohol and other drugs, STIs, teen pregnancy and healthy relationships. Programming includes parental involvement.   
• We facilitate Abstinence Education in the following formats:
  • Middle and High School age students.
  • 9 sessions of the experiential ACE curriculum

Community Outreach Groups: These 8 session, early intervention groups, meet with small groups of identified students to discuss various topics throughout the school year.  A skilled facilitator works with a maximum of 12 students to present education and skills to students in relevant and innovative approach on the following topics:

• Grief and Loss
• How Emotions Work for You (anger management)
• Healthy Relationships and Boundaries
• Gang Intervention
• Girls
• Boys
• Coping Skills (stress, anxiety, depression)
• Conflict Resolution
• Life Skills
• Mean Girls: Dealing with Relational Aggression
• Strategies for Motivation
• Youth Leadership
• Substance Abuse Education

Community Awareness:

• Movies in the Park During summer months, Wedgwood hosts movie nights in community parks throughout the county.  The evening focus is to bring families together for a pro-social family event that provides the opportunity to transfer knowledge about youth trends and issues, and to share information with parents to help them create a healthy environment in their homes that support youth in making healthy choices. Families receive a "drive home" question and answer card to encourage discussion between family members about concepts from the film, including overcoming obstacles to making healthy decisions, the role of encouragement and healthy friendships.
  

Family Engagement:

• Parent focus groups
• Parent Nights that offer education and fellowship

Community Collaboration:

• Wedgwood chairs the Coalition on Adolescent Choices and Health (COACH) whose mission is to encourage youth and teens to make  healthy life choices and to promote abstinence from sexual activity, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use.
• Kent County Substance Abuse Prevention Leadership Coalition: A healthier community for all served by a substance abuse prevention system that fills gaps in services, focuses resources and funds, and reduces overlap.  To create and sustain an organized, connected, strategic, inclusive substance abuse prevention system by:
  • Holding the system accountable to outcomes;
  • Implementing a data driven planning process;
  • Including diverse community participants in the planning process;
  • Making collaborative/shared decisions;
  • Providing culturally competent prevention services; and,
  • Utilizing flexible and coordinated resources.

For more information about Wedgwood's prevention programs, call 616-942-7294.