Other Trainings & Programs

The MPNNCSB Prevention, Health and Wellness Division reaches out to touch the lives of community members by offering a wide variety of creative, informative, evidence and skill-based programs, trainings and classes.

Underage Drinking - Project Sticker Shock

This environmental program is one of the many community-based and statewide strategies being implemented throughout Virginia. The goal is to reduce underage drinking and to reach those people 21 years of age and older who might purchase alcohol for minors.

Alcohol is the most widely used substance of abuse among youth in America. Underage drinking significantly impacts brain development and increases the risk of physical and sexual assault, legal problems, other drug abuse, heavy drinking later in life, and suicide and homicide. Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2017) indicates that the majority of underage drinkers did not pay for the alcohol the last time they drank (71%) and the most common way that these youth were able to get alcohol was through an unrelated person aged 21 or older (32%).

Project Sticker Shock strives to prevent adults 21 or older from purchasing alcohol and giving it to underage youth. Through raising community awareness about Virginia laws, Project Sticker Shock brings attention to this troubling issue. Project Sticker Shock events are held in retail establishments that sell alcohol. Stickers and window clings containing warnings about the penalties for providing alcohol to minors and using fake IDs to purchase alcohol are placed on cases and coolers. This project promotes collaborative partnerships between:

  • Community organizations
  • Law enforcement
  • Media
  • Retail establishments
  • Youth
  • Other community members

Counter Tools

This environmental program educates merchants who sell tobacco products about the importance of not selling tobacco products to minors and to strive to carefully consider the placement of tobacco product advertisements. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable and premature death in the United States.

MPNN Healthy Communities Action Team (HCAT) Program

Celebrate Healthy Living

The MPNN Healthy Community Action Team Project is funded through a grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY). The primary goal of this grant is to prevent childhood obesity through a wide-range of evidence-based strategies that promote eating well and exercising. This project is striving to increase community access to fresh and nutritious food.

Through a diverse range of engaged community partners, this project is achieving outcomes of increasing children’s consumption of healthy food and promoting children’s participation in physical activity. We are working with youth serving organizations throughout the Middle Peninsula-Northern Neck Region. In addition, through the Community Garden Project we are assisting these organizations in establishing community gardens at their sites where children and youth can learn how to grow and harvest fresh vegetables. Also, we work with local food banks to donate food from our community gardens.

Each year we sponsor a Celebrate Healthy Living Day Event that has multiple vendors with healthy food and products and fun activities for the community to enjoy. This event is free and open to the public. It is held the last Saturday in April at Woodville Park in Gloucester County from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Suicide Prevention Programs

Learn more about suicide prevention efforts.