Starting Conversations

by Josh Welch
(Assistant Director Residence & Greek Life,  University of Central Missouri)

Alpha Chi Omega’s Alcohol Skills Training Program Approach to Empowering Women

As a part of the Alpha Chi Omega ASTP facilitator team I am excited to join the women of Alpha Chi Omega in REAL conversations, specifically about alcohol use and how to approach the choice to drink in a way that one is able to avoid the negative consequences sometimes associated with consumption. The Alcohol Skills Training Program (ASTP) is an approach that gives drinkers and non-drinkers information about alcohol and helps to facilitate dialogue with chapter members to clarify social norms using facts and evidence based practices. The program addresses alcohol’s affects on the body based on expectancy, how alcohol enters and leaves the body, and gives participants the opportunity to ask questions and develop personal strategies. By arming these women with knowledge they are better equipped to make decisions around their use of alcohol or abstinence from. Thankfully ASTP is a REAL risk management prevention approach that meets students where they are and empowers them to use skills and facts to make decisions that affect their life.

As a facilitator of the ASTP program I have seen chapter members engage in the REAL conversations about alcohol use, identify ways to promote change in consumption behavior and clarify the social norms in their chapter about the REAL acceptability of alcohol use. The women identified REAL situations in their lives and with information from the program made REAL informed decisions on how those situations would affect them and their chapter. One of the more powerful moments of a recent program was hearing women in the chapter send a STRONG message that misuse of alcohol was not acceptable behavior from members.

I am reminded of a saying that “if we are going to send our kids to the pool, we better make sure that they know how to swim.” Alpha Chi Omega has realized that our students on college campuses are faced with decisions about alcohol use, and from that realization they’ve worked to develop a program to equip their women with knowledge to face that decision. As Alpha Chi Omega works to offer ASTP to more of their chapters my hope is that the real, strong women who are attending these programs will take the information they learn and start conversations about safer ways to consume alcohol within their other networks on campus.

Tags: Health and Wellness

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Collegians, Real. Strong. Women.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.