BRiDGES Tobacco Prevention Reality Check Program welcomes Kali Bushey as our new Reality Check lead coordinator. Bushey brings her experience as a former Reality Check Youth Leader and ATFC intern, as well as lots of enthusiasm, creativity and dedication to the program. She replaces Heather Bernet, who advanced to the position of Advancing Tobacco-Free Communities Statewide Coordinator.
For the last 10 years, the BRiDGES Tobacco-Free Program of Madison, Oneida and Herkimer Counties has worked with community leaders and youth champions to help reduce tobacco use in all three counties.
The organization launched its next five-year contract with a new Reality Check lead coordinator and the additional position of statewide coordinator. The contract is through the state Department of Health Bureau of Tobacco Control.
BRiDGES tobacco-free program supports efforts to locally educate community stakeholders and youth in changing norms that lead to ending tobacco use among adults and children.
BRiDGES Tobacco-Free Program of Madison, Oneida and Herkimer Counties will continue to be operated by community engagement coordinator Sue Casanova and Reality Check youth engagement coordinators Julie Hengst and Rachel Johnson, with Bushey serving as new RC lead coordinator and Heather Bernet coordinating statewide activities such as the Youth Leaders’ Summit, Legislative Education Day, the Youth Ambassador of the Year Awards and statewide media.
The primary goals of the tobacco control programs are to:
- Reduce the impact of retail tobacco marketing on youth by educating communities about the manipulative marketing tactics of the tobacco industry.
- Establish tobacco-free community norms through clean outdoor air policies by working with communities to create more smoke-free parks, playgrounds and beaches.
- Lessen secondhand smoke exposure by working with landlords and tenants to implement smoke-free housing policies in multi-unit dwellings.
- Diminish tobacco imagery in youth-rated movies by working for change in the rating system to require an R rating for movies that contain smoking imagery.
- Decrease tobacco industry presence on social media by working with stakeholders and internet sites to enact and adhere to policies that protect youth from tobacco imagery.
All counties in New York state have the resources of a community engagement program and a Reality Check youth action program through the Bureau of Tobacco Control. These contracts build on previous tobacco control funded work which supports the region’s public health efforts and provides more comprehensive programing across the state.
The state Department of Health Bureau of Tobacco Control funds BRiDGES Tobacco-Free Program of Madison, Oneida and Herkimer Counties to increase support for New York state’s tobacco-free norm through youth action and community engagement. Efforts are evidence-based, policy-driven and cost-effective approaches that decrease youth tobacco use, motivate adult smokers to quit and eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke. The program is administered by BRiDGES, the Madison County Council on Alcoholism & Substance Abuse, Inc.