Community Action Network for Drugfree Lifestyle Empowerment, Inc.

It was formed in 2004 to oversee the grassroots parent/child drug prevention program called Reality Tour. It all started in 2003, in the small town of Butler, PA to combat a growing heroin problem. The community was looking for a way to rapidly inform families of the risks the prevalence of heroin presented to adolescents and teens.

There were no programs in 2004 to educate the public when heroin exploded onto our streets. Everything was focused on families already in crisis and arresting those who were using. Sadly, nothing has changed in 20 years as evidenced by the tightening grip of the opioid epidemic.

Reality Tour is the only evidence-based program that is focused on keeping our healthy families healthy. While it does have application for families at-risk, the components of the prevention intervention were created with the general public in mind. Educated parent and child together before wrong choices could be made was critical.

While Reality Tour leans heavily on a common sense approach, it used best practice in social emotional learning for greater impact on parent/child participants. The program centers on three core components:

1. The Consequences – Presented as brief narrated scenes
2. The Coping Skills – Presented as an interactive session with an emphasis on risk and protective factors.
3. First Person Accounts – Q & A with law enforcement and a recovery spokesperson.

The program was popular from the beginning. A three-month waiting list to attend was testimony to the unmet need. Our Reality Tour Program Model was developed to meet the requests from other communities seeking to replicate the intervention. There was a heartfelt desire in neighboring communities to strengthen the family and avoid the risk of substance use disorder.

Thankfully in those early days of developing our program, the federal government provided meaningful resources that connected prevention providers across the country so we could share best practices and learn about developing trends in real time. That worked great until the Office of National Drug Control Policy quit hosting the platform. A few years after that, SAMHSA abruptly pulled the plug on the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices from their website. This was the nation’s ‘shopping list’ of prevention programs that communities and educators could view and select programs to meet their needs. Reality Tour was on that list and that is how we were able to make our way into other states. Years later nothing has surfaced to replace this resource.

Community-based prevention has long been recognized as the ideal approach to prevention. Yet, it has been quite difficult to achieve on a level that reaches significant numbers. Reality Tour changed all of that with a ‘road map’ to guide communities large and small as to how to replicate the program with success and sustainability. Is it possible for any community to take care of their own prevention needs? The answer lies in the response to the question, “Do you have twelve people who care about prevention?”

CANDLE, Inc. developed an array of innovations in prevention over the years. From our vaping test strips to detect nicotine and marijuana to our SmartZone activities for Red Ribbon Week. prevention is 24/7. We are here to help.