The Ohio Teen Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse is the oldest positive peer prevention program in the United States. It has successfully met the needs of many thousands of Ohio’s youth for more than forty years – providing alcohol and other drug education and prevention projects and prevention leadership skills trainings.
In June of 1965, seven winners of the Ohio high school essay contest on “The Effects of Alcohol” were made members of the Youth Advisory Board of the Ohio Governor’s Committee on Teenage Drinking. The Ohio Department of Health’s Alcoholism Program awarded them scholarships to attend that summer’s Midwest Institute on Alcohol Studies at the University of Wisconsin. (It was the first year that youth were invited to attend that conference.) What those students learned became the basis for the founding of Ohio’s Teen Institute. Each summer since 1966, a summer Teen Institute training has been held attended by students from throughout the state.
In succeeding years, the Ohio Teen Institute progressed from a once-a-year State training event to being a three-level (local/county, multi-county and state) developmental program. Chardon High School Teen Institute was established in 1981 and the Chardon Middle School Junior Teen Institute, the only middle school Teen Institute program in Geauga County, in 2002.
Chardon High School Teen Institute members receive initial training at an annual November three-day Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula Teen Institute. There they learn effective tobacco, alcohol and other drug prevention projects and develop their leadership skills.
High school TI members role more positive role models and educators for Chardon Middle School students at two yearly daylong retreats as well as serving on the youth staff of a multi-county 7th grade program, Challenges and Decisions and the 8th grade Golden Ticket to Life.