Ed4Ed ~~Who are we, and what do we do?

First, thank you for being your child’s champion! Your community is indebted to you for your interest in keeping others aware in your community so that they too can destroy ignorance, saving and protecting young lives through education about little known (to adults) youth risk behaviors as they evolve and change (program currently covers "The Choking Game"; OTC & Med Abuse "Pharm Parties"; "EMO", normal youth counter-culture groups that can deviate & involve self harm; Atypical Inhalants). You are the most critical component in this grassroots intervention/prevention campaign. Ed4Ed is a unique virtual community organized to serve you, the injury prevention advocate with research and resources. The main communications hub is Ed4Ed at yahoo health groups: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ed4Ed.

Here you will join us in collaboration with educators (lay and professionals) here in the US, Canada & Europe, through many organizations [primarily linking with GASP http://www.gaspinfo.com/ for USA and Canada and via APEAS of Paris, France http://www.jeudufoulard.com/ - the hub that links us with 6 other countries] across the world.

Ed4Ed is a sub-set of this larger collaborative. Ed4Ed is set apart, in that is exists for one purpose alone – to support the advocate via communication in simple but effective networking. We pool our resources and share our experiences, improve our effectiveness.

I serve you as a moderator at the communication sites, contribute a curriculum I authored, Ed4Ed – Teaching The Essential Elements of Youth Risk Behavior to Today’s Youth, host and maintain the “cloud storage” where this program is available for all, and where I reserve room for you to create, upload and share your work with your co-associates here. You also have the option of sharing and distributing not only the Ed4Ed program, but also your unique works wherever and with whomever you wish (create internet links on your websites, Facebook pages, YouTube Accounts, educational forums, blogs, internet sites you access, etc.).
You are welcome and encouraged to join us and to invite others to join us, but access to the program is not contingent on membership or participation in support offered.
In addition to me all Ed4Ed Associates are supported by three other key administrators and can assist you there. They have administrative privileges identical to my own and serve to assist you in all capacities.

• Lyndi Trost, Ed4Ed Network Director, A retired computer programmer, with years of experience in database and web design, handles all our computer tech matters here and in our “cloud storage” web site). Lyndi & I began this journey together in 2007. Lyndi’s Grandson’s Memorial web page is: http://braden-erickson.memory-of.com/About.aspx
• Ken Tork, Ed4Ed Outreach Coordinator, has been an Associate Member of our team since April of 2008. He is in a unique position to travel as he owns his own company and sets his own hours. He has offered to take the work out on the road. Like many of the advocates he chooses to speak publicly, presenting educational programs. In November he accepted the challenge of taking the Ed4Ed Program out to others, instructing users how to get the most out of the program and add it to their “war chest” of injury prevention education tools. Ken’s blog site is http://forkevinssake.wordpress.com/
• Leslie Block, RN CEN Ed4Ed Injury Prevention Specialist joined us in January of 2010. She will serve us with 20+ years of injury prevention work and expertise gained in her work as a certified Emergency Room Nurse for 20+ years too. She is the “go to gal” for medical questions, anatomy, physiology, etc. She is also our key liaison with medical professionals. Leslie is also the creator and author of another blog that is dedicated to the prevention of injuries in adults and children http://ernursescare.blogspot.com/ .
When you join us you (all members of this group) become an Ed4Ed Associate. We are all educators seeking to reach other educators, aligned to effect prevention/intervention of accidental injury and deaths due to asphyxial activities, and other emerging youth risk behaviors masquerading as “games”. [All risks currently covered are outlined in the Instruction Manual and the Presentation Binder in the links below]. It is a pleasure to reach out to you, shake your hand and express my appreciation that you have chosen to join us.

Access All Our Materials Via Our Cloud Storage : http://www.box.net/shared/ov7inpeqye (BOX.NET - See Link On Page).

Begin with the Interim User's Guide at http://www.box.net/shared/m4cu8ghqm and I suggest downloading the Adobe Acrobat Presentation format first http://www.box.net/shared/akts57aee1
With your membership (to Ed4Ed Yahoo Health Groups Support Network) you will automatically receive this guide. Should you wish to access the materials independent of the group’s support, please make this your first stop in your exploration of “cloud storage”. This will be the gateway to unlock the materials that are stored there for convenient, online access.

*Note, The Interim Guide is a “work in progress”. As the author of the curriculum, I am probably not the best person to write the instructional manual. It is difficult for me to see the program through a new user’s eye. (Ken, Lyndi and Leslie are taking point on this process and I invite you to help us with your reviews.) I have been working with the program for three years, familiarity that hinders an objective review for instruction purposes. As it evolves the notification of updates will be sent via the communications networks. *Note, ADOBE FILES [“.pdf” and “.sfw”] require current Adobe Software [Acrobat Reader and Adobe FLASH player]. If you do not yet have this free Adobe Software, download it from the Adobe Website, http://get.adobe.com//. (They also have great new user tutorials if you are not familiar with these formats.)

Many of the advocates you will meet here, including myself, Lyndi and Ken, are family members who have been personally and profoundly affected through the death or injury of their child or loved one to “The Choking Game”. We have become aware of other risk behaviors and now take on education about them too. Leslie has been deeply affected by countless youth she attends in the ER that fall prey to ignorance about a wide array of risks, which makes them victims requiring medical aid. Every Ed4Ed Associate here has been, in one way or another so deeply affected that they have sprung into intervention advocacy action at the grassroots level, motivated to bond together and push for change in a growing grassroots movement.

I am a full time volunteer advocate here to serve you. We exist solely to serve you! Please do not hesitate to contact us. Again on behalf of all Ed4Ed Associates, I welcome you to this network. Your presence is proof of your passion! I am quite fond of a quote with which I close this letter of introduction, stating eloquently the power of passion.

Les passions sont les seuls orateurs qui persuadent toujours. Elles sont comme un art de la nature dont les règles sont infaillibles; et l'homme le plus simple qui a de la passion persuade mieux que le plus éloquent qui n'en a point.

“The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.”
- François de La Rochefoucauld

Sincerely,
Carrie Draher, Ed4Ed Program Director
cdraher@sbcglobal.net