NYFS Discussion Brings Underage Drinking Into Focus

By Eliza Hallabeck

Newtown Youth & Family Services Program Director Jessi Ziegler met with five Newtown High School students Friday, July 23, for the first focus group discussion the nonprofit agency hopes to hold in the next year on the topic of underage drinking.

On Monday, July 26, Ms Ziegler said she is waiting for the information gathered from Friday’s session to be evaluated by Susan Holt, who works for Central Connecticut State University’s psychology department and offers her services as a professional evaluator, and NYFS staff members, but she is excited about what the discussion started.

The discussions are being held through the Partnerships for Success: State and Community Prevention Performance Grant, which is funded through the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, according to Ms Ziegler.

“We had the kids for about one hour,” said Ms Ziegler. Adding later, “Their information was very useful, insightful, and interesting. Our next step is to meet with our evaluator and discuss the information that was collected.”

The topic of Friday’s discussion centered around underage drinking, and Ms Ziegler said most of the information cannot be shared until it is gone over by the evaluator. Ms Ziegler did say the biggest reason students gave for underage drinking is boredom.

“They opened up pretty well,” she said. “As usual in a focus group, you are going to have some people that speak more than others. You had a lot of information out of some people, a lot of Yes and Nos out of some others, but it was really good because the group did end up opening up.”

Through filling out a NYFS survey and answering a question about activities the NYFS could hold for students who may be bored in town, Ms Ziegler said the focus group helped to potentially work against boredom among Newtown youth in the future.

As an incentive for students and adults to take part in the focus groups the NYFS is offering $5 gift cards to Dunkin’ Donuts to each participant, according to Ms Ziegler.

Information on future focus groups will be available on the NYFS’s website, www.newtownyouthandfamilyservices.org, and on the group’s Facebook page.

“A lot of the focus groups will be on underage drinking,” said Ms Ziegler. “What we are trying to do is get different groups from the high school, so we aren’t getting the same information from the same group. And we are also going to hold other focus groups. We are going to try to focus groups with adults, and we are going to try to hold focus groups with different religious organizations in town as well.”

Looking back on Friday’s focus group discussion, Ms Ziegler said it was interesting to see the students’ take on what is happening in town.

“I also enjoyed the fact that they were open enough to come, number one, and number two, to be open enough to actually give input on what is going on and not be afraid to talk about it,” Ms Ziegler said.