The Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. Program responds to an important need in our province - injury prevention.
Our Rationale
You may be surprised to know that injury has been called Canada’s invisible epidemic. It is disturbing to know that this epidemic is the 4th leading killer of Canadians of all ages, but perhaps more distressing to know that injury is the #1 killer of Canadian youth.
The problem is especially relevent here in Alberta. In our province, injury is the leading cause of death and disability under the age of 44, but it becomes an issue deserving special attention as youth round the corner into adulthood, starting around the time they are 15 years old.
The
trend extends into our own community – as is illustrated below, in the
Aspen Health Region, youth are injured in notable disproportion to
their population.
Injuries in our province account for not only a staggering financial burden and tremendous productivity losses, but also immense personal burdens on the injured and their families.
Perhaps the most tragic feature of this epidemic is the point that the injuries young people, their families, and our entire community suffer are chiefly preventable. We are beginning to take hold of the problem in our province, and injury rates have been dropping over the last decade as we learn more and more about what exactly is going on and how to change it.
The opportunities to save economic and social costs extend to many aspects of our lives. We know that wearing a helmet when bicycling, for instance, reduces the risk of head injury by 85% and brain injury by 88%, and that having a parent model bicycle helmet wearing dramatically increases the likelihood of young people wearing helmets.
We also know that in the 15- to 19-year-old age group, for
example, nearly half of all injury-related deaths and about one quarter
of hospitalizations each year involve motor vehicles. Using seatbelts,
installing airbags, and decreasing speed are all known to reduce
injuries, and it is also known that alcohol is often involved in
preventable injuries involving motor vehicles. According to research
conducted by the Alberta
Centre for Injury Control and Research, implementing a
prevention strategy that gets people to buckle up, drive sober, slow
down, and look first on roads can lead to about 1,500 fewer injuries
treated outside the hospital, about 789 fewer hospitalizations, and
about 180 fewer injuries that lead to permanent disability, with a net
savings of roughly $127 million annually. 
All this suggests that an essential element of injury prevention is having and acting on good information about risk, and that to control the costs to individuals and communities of preventable trauma, we have to change knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours along with laws and the physical environment we exist in. Since its inception here in 1997, P.A.R.T.Y., a program to "Prevent Alcohol and Risk related Trauma in Youth", has been doing just that, investing in the future of communities in and around Bonnyville and Cold Lake.
A broadly overseen national organization now, P.A.R.T.Y. started at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ontario, in 1986, as the idea of caring and remarkably foresighted nurses there. Formerly, under the auspices of the SmartRisk Foundation, P.A.R.T.Y. was able to spread all over Canada, to the US, and abroad to Australia. Because of such commitments and partnerships P.A.R.T.Y. has matured to the place where it is today; an independent national organization under its own governance.
Essential P.A.R.T.Y.
The Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. Program is, like its sister programs, committed to empowering youth in the Bonnyville, Cold Lake, and surrounding areas by providing excellent resources to help them avoid trauma and injury for the rest of their lives. (See our Mission Statement.)
A source of community involvement and pride, the Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. Program has distinguished itself by remarkable innovation and commitment to program development. The program is a dynamic, responsive, community-based educational program that responds each year to feedback from students, teachers, other community members, and the national organization, as well as to research-based evidence and outcome measurement.
Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. offers local grade 9 students an intensive 3-part program of dynamic, youth-centered injury prevention training with a strong emphasis on positive risk management. We focus on activities youth are likely to face and that involve risk, including driving on and off the highway in winter and summer, participating in water-based activities like boating, swimming, and diving, partying with friends, playing sports, etc. During the program, perils that necessarily accompany the risks youth face are described from the perspectives of people who know: frontline ambulance personnel, RCMP officers, military personnel, emergency room nurses, rehabilitation professionals, fire fighters, and other community members, as well as actual injury survivors who have lived to tell their stories.
At P.A.R.T.Y., we do not pull any punches. Our presenters, including the injury survivors, tell it exactly as it is. But we do not preach to the adolescents; nor do we tell them to stop taking risks in life. We instead illustrate the importance of making wise decisions when taking risks. We encourage students to live active, safe, and healthy lives and ask them in doing so to consider that for every decision they make, there are consequences, and that, unfortunately, the actual may not always be the anticipated consequences. We also offer them practise in important skills (e.g., bridging and refusal skills) and encourage them to consider their values and goals when planning to face risk. In short, we teach them how to take “SmartRisk” for life.
Our Targets
“We can attempt to count the numbers of health care services used, the number of potential years of life lost, and the number of hours of work, but it is impossible to quantify the loss of a loved one, a child who has had only a few years of life, or the toll of severe disability on the injured person and their family.” Alberta Centre for Injury Control & Research Stats from Alberta Health and Wellness tell us that from 1999 to 2003, for each injury death, there were 46 hospital admissions, and 964 emergency department visits for injuries to children and youth under 20. According to Stats Canada, in 2005, within the Aspen Regional Health Authority, 5,578 youth aged 12-19 reported sustaining injuries causing some limitation of daily activities. (CanSim Table 105-0418)
We strive to offer every grade nine student in the Bonnyville/Cold Lake area the opportunity to attend their local P.A.R.T.Y. Program. Why do we target grade nine students? The P.A.R.T.Y. program presents to students in this age group for a number of reasons:
- They are learning to drive.
- They are beginning to experiment with alcohol and drugs.
- They are mature enough to grasp the material presented.
- Most important of all, they are influenceable. They are still forming opinions about risk–related behaviour, peer pressure, and society’s expectations of them.
We do not limit our scope to grade nines in traditional schools, though, and the program is not strictly about education. Practice, reinforcement, and community support are essential tp keeping the P.A.R.T.Y. going. We reach out to young people in other age groups and environments, and we include community in everything we do. The program has worked with the RCMP, for example, in targeting all high school grads in timely outreach presentations delivered at the end of the school year when students are likely to be experimenting at "grad parties". We also have youth presenters who frankly discuss with their peers issues in risk-taking in the youth culture. Moreover, the program reaches out to aboriginal students in our community, and we offer follow-up programs in which students further develop and put to use the skills and attitudes they learn at P.A.R.T.Y. and take ownership of and work to address problems they identify in their community. We also provide programming for parents and other community groups to help keep everyone on the same page for injury prevention in our community.
P.A.R.T.Y. combines the forces of engineering, enforcement, and education in injury prevention. We have taken the challenge to help build a community ready, willing, and able to prevent trauma and injury, and are extending it to you. Support Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. in our efforts to help keep our community vibrant and prevent our young people from becoming statistics on Alberta’s roads, lakes, and recreational areas.
Thank you and let’s P.A.R.T.Y.!
- Lori House
- Executive Director
- Lakeland P.A.R.T.Y. Program Association
- Email lori@lakelandparty.ca
- Phone 780 573 9034
