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Sandy Spavone

Sandy Spavone, Executive Director of National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) has worked with youth peer education national programs for the past twelve years. These programs provide youth tools to take a concern and turn it into action. She has developed national youth leadership training programs, programs to address specific health and safety concerns, and coordinated national campaigns. Before entering the non-profit field Mrs. Spavone taught 12th Grade English and Advanced Placement English and served as the Student Government Sponsor for eight years. The tragic loss of her brother’s child to a drunk driver is the inspiration for her work with youth both in education and now with NOYS to help prevent these needless crashes. In her role with National Organizations for Youth Safety, she launched National Youth Traffic Safety Month. This campaign which is in its 5th year began in conjunction with the UN Global Road Safety Week and is now an annual campaign held each May. This program supports youth around the country who develop and implement projects, events, and campaigns to address youth traffic safety in their communities. Monetary awards are available through The Allstate Foundation sponsored Act Out Loud contest, The National Road Safety Foundation Drive2Life PSA contest, the NHTSA and Casey Feldman Foundation YOUTH-Turn It Around Awards. Other awards are provided through the Youth Choice Awards and the ONDCP Drugged Driving Poster Contest. This campaign continues to grow, for the latest information visit www.noys.org. National Organizations for Youth Safety is a coalition of national organizations that focus on youth safety and health. The coalition’s membership represents over 80 million youth and adult advisers. The mission of the NOYS Coalition is to promote youth empowerment and leadership, and build partnerships that save lives, prevent injuries, and enhance safe and healthy lifestyles among all youth.

Posts by Sandy


Engaging and Empowering Youth

Written by Sandy Spavone | 11:05 am March 28, 2011

NOYS logoSo you want to address a youth issue – the topics are endless… tobacco, underage drinking, substance abuse, traffic safety, bullying, violence, injury, teen pregnancy, school drop-out , etc. – you get the picture – more to address than any one group can take on.  Each and every topic is vitally important and deserves the focus and attention of advocacy leaders to make a difference.  As you are working on addressing youth health and safety issues, don’t forget the ones you hope to impact the most – youth.  As the youth remind us all “Don’t do anything about us without us.”  But how involved do you want them to be and how do you get youth involved?

In 1995 the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) established a definition of meaningful youth participation as: “Meaningful youth participation involves recognizing and nurturing the strengths, interests, and abilities of young people through the provision of real opportunities for youth to become involved in decisions that affect them at individual and systemic levels.”  What is meaningful, nurturing, and involves youth and to what level?  As a coalition of national organizations, businesses, and federal partners National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) is often asked these questions by groups as they hope to address youth issues.  Sadly many companies and organizations develop programs and products then wonder how to involve youth or why youth aren’t accepting the program/product/program they developed.  To avoid hitting this implementation wall, it is important to engage and empower youth from the onset of the development of the youth project. If one waits until the project is designed to bring in youth the youth are less likely to feel ownership and less likely to embrace the ideas presented to them.

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