News Release: REALITY TOUR© MAKES A DIFFERENCE - PROGRAM SPREADING ACROSS PA - SCHOOLS ONBOARD

BUTLER, PA – The Reality Tour© Drug Prevention program that started as a summer project in Butler, PA now involves
15 PA communities and 1 Ohio community in replicating the walk in the life of a teen on heroin. Two more Butler sites will be added in Cranberry Twp. and Slippery Rock in ’07, for a total of 3 presentation locations including the original monthly program still held at the YWCA in downtown Butler. Volunteers are needed for all locations at present as well as sponsors for at-risk youth.

Norma Norris, executive director of the parent non-profit CANDLE, Inc. and creator of the Reality Tour, states that, “The demand is ongoing in Butler County. We are piloting our Prevention Initiative in collaboration with area schools. The schools promote Reality Tour attendance to a specific grade level of students and parents plus receive priority reservation status to reduce the usual 2-month wait for a reservation. Within the first week of Knoch Middle School’s 6th Grade Prevention Initiative announcement to parents, we received 54 reservations and capacity for the program is 60-65 persons.”

The 3-year Prevention Initiative goal is to build enough capacity to serve the target audience of each school in the county with the Reality Tour experience. Schools may inquire about the Prevention Initiative now to be considered for the new sites.

Outcomes of the Butler program have recently been compiled. Surveys of 239 youth and adults attending the tour in a one year time period reveal that 80% of the youth attending in grades 5-8 leave the program committed to a drug-free lifestyle. 71% of those commitments are directly related to the impact of the program. In grades 9-12 the drug-free commitment raises to 88%. Parents attending in ’03 and ’04 indicate now that the experience has increased discussion in the home regarding substance abuse and youth from that time period indicate they will ‘never forget’ the Reality Tour© experience.

The program is now attracting interest in 16 other states as a result of a presentation by Norris at the National Neighborhoods USA Conference in Kansas City, MO in May. Recently the National Office of Drug Control Policy requested that Norris come to Washington, D.C. to explain the elements of this program that is spreading across PA. A meeting this fall is being planned.

Currently there are tours in replication or in the process of replication in Allegheny, Armstrong, Mercer, Warren, Forest, Elk, Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, Wayne Counties and one in the Cleveland area. There are two tours in Lawrence Co and Westmoreland County just agreed to become a satellite site of CANDLE, Inc. The community is organizing volunteers now.

Joseph Powell, director of PA’s Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Prevention called in early ’06 to express surprise at the rapid expansion of the program and after reviewing the Reality Tour materials concluded that it meets the goals and guidelines for prevention in PA . The Reality Tour is now on the Bureau’s list of innovative programs.