Our 2016-2017 school year has started off with a blast, scheduling a total of 40 groups within 15 schools, in seven school districts. Schools love B.A.B.E.S., children loves B.A.B.E.S. and I love presenting B.A.B.E.S. With the help of seven very relatable, loveable puppets, B.A.B.E.S. teaches helpful, factual drug awareness in a very fun and age level appropriate manner.
The decade of the “80’s produced the beginnings of a long-needed counter-attack on the growing menace of alcohol and other drug abuse in the Native American populations in both Indian Reservations and in urban areas where Indians have migrated.
This counter-attack was funded by the federal government through the Indian Health Services and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
As the 90’s begin, some of the Reservations have treatment facilities for those who choose to recover, and in urban areas there are agencies to serve this population.
Of great significance was the recognition in the mid-80’s by the Indian Health Services that a prevention program for children would be essential. As a result, BABES (for Beginning Alcohol and Addictions Basic Education Studies) has been presented by hundreds of Indian adults to thousands of Indian children. And the activity grows both on reservations and in urban centers with large Native American populations.
From Bemidji, in northern Minnesota near the headwaters of the Mississippi River, James Brown coordinates the alcohol and other drug abuse programs for Indians in four states – Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
He oversees annual expenditures of $5 million, serves an Indian population of 50,000, and for several years, he has arranged annually for the training of a group of 20 adults to become BABES presenters.
Like the 11 other people in similar posts in other sectors of the country, he seeks to balance services and be responsive to the dozens of requests that arise from agents and agencies in his area.
When Indian Health Services in Washington first called his attention to BABES in 1984, Brown decided to invest some of the available prevention education dollars into a training for 20 adults in Wisconsin.
That he was satisfied by the results is evident from subsequent actions: arranging for five more trainings.
Further, he began to spread the word about BABES to coordinators of other areas and now there are BABES Presenters for Native American children from coast to coast.
Two who are near to Bemidji are John Barrett and Lee Lussier, Chippewa serving in the Red Lake Reservation Substance Abuse Center about 50 miles northwest of Bemidji.
Besides going into three schools where they teach BABES lessons to early elementary children, when school is out in the summer time, they go to camps to present.
‘We enjoy doing it and the kids enjoy,” Barrett said. “We get lots of good feedback and sometimes, after we do the Rhonda Rabbit story, a child will talk about being abused. We know we’ve saved some children a lot of pain.”
They estimate the have reached 7,000 children in five years.
That’s a bunch – but a small one compared to all the children served thru James Brown’s initiative.
The mission of the BABES program is designed to capture the attention, imagination and creativity of the total community. In this vein, it is important that All BABES family members know that we at BABESWORLD Home have someone assigned to look after their wellbeing and to know what is going on with our family members. Accordingly, Al Rice has been assigned the position of BABES Family Relations Coordinator.
In his role, Al will be reaching out to all BABES programs around the world to ensure that All BABES family members, with support of BABESWORLD Home, are living, loving and working together to create an environment where all, especially children, feel safe, healthy, loved and protected from substance abuse disorders.
We encourage All BABES family members to consider submitting articles for the monthly BABES Around the World newsletter, and other communications to share program accomplishments or challenges on the BABESWORLD Blog.
We congratulate Al on his assignment, and request All BABES family members to contribute to his success!
By Al Rice
The Vanier Community Service Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has a very active BABES Prevention Program involving third grade students in the Vanier (Ottawa) area schools. For eight weeks, the children have the pleasure of getting to know the fun animal puppets, which are animated by presenters from the Vanier Community Service Centre. Children follow the adventures of the delightful BABES club member characters during school hours and learn themes which are appropriately aimed for learning positive life principles.
Ms. Camille Marcil is the youth programs coordinator for BABES Prevention Program at the Vanier Community Service Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Greetings from my desk…high atop a mountain of paperwork. We at BABESWORLD have begun Stage III in the process of credentialing BABES to achieve its goal of becoming registered as an Evidence-Based Program listed on SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs (NREPP). We are following a plan, created by the Wayne State School of Social Work, which includes:
The 16th Annual Recovery March and Rally, sponsored by the NCADD, was celebrated by thousands of people on Saturday, September 10, 2016. BABESWORLD was represented by our founder, Rev. Dr. Lottie Jones Hood and Linda Pierce, who braved the inclement weather and marched across the Belle Isle Bridge, in Detroit, Michigan to enjoy the day’s events. Carmen Cook coordinated and Al Rice, Jan Lossing and Yvonne Knox hosted the resource table, where BABES distributed hundreds of flyers and spoke of our mission to people from all areas of recovery. Jan and Yvonne also had a table for the children in The Fun Zone, with coloring, BABES balloons and a treasure hunt. Life-sized puppets of Donovan Dignity and Bows made a brief appearance, due to the threat of rain. A good time was had by all and we look forward to participating in next year’s event.
BABESWORLD was on exhibit at the 17th Annual Substance Use/Co-Occurring Disorder Conference in Detroit, and was enjoyed by many conference attendees. Representatives from agencies of Substance Use/Co-Occurring Disorder from across the state of Michigan visited the BABESWORLD booth and got to meet the delightful BABESWORLD club puppets. Also performing at the booth were the life-size characters of Buttons and Bows McKitty.
Many program developers are under the impression that SAMHSA is the only agency to which they can submit research studies for evaluation. This is not the case, as there are many Registries with a wide range of requirements, on the “continuum of levels of evidence”. Agencies also have a variety of names for each of these levels. Evidence-based practice had been considered the “gold standard” of rating, based on the stringent standards of evaluation to be met, however, this too has changed. NREPP (SAMHSA) currently rates program outcomes as “effective”, “promising”, or “ineffective”. Other levels of evaluation rated by Registries of the Dept. of Education and Justice include proven, effective, promising, best, emerging, ineffective and inconclusive practices.
Children in a parochial school in Nizhni Tag ii, Russia, wave BABES puppets to show their delight.
In the beginning, when BABES was created through the mind of Dr. Lottie Jones, she visualized BABES reaching around the world. The name of this publication and the masthead mirror that vision. Last October, two BABES Presenters from Orangewood Children’s Home introduced BABES to children in a city in the foothills of the Ural Mountains in central Russia. When you look at your world map, you will see this spot is just about halfway round the world from Detroit, where BABES was born.
Wayne County Schools Sign Up for BABES
Through the guidance of Genevieve Rakocy, director of the Retired Seniors Volunteers Program (RSVP) in Wayne County, the lives of thousands of retirees have been blessed during the past decade.
Of 30 Wayne County retirees trained to present BABES, one – Shirley Loving – the widow of a former school principal, became the “star” of a photo story by the Detroit News.
