Where Prevention Meets Intervention: How Better Without It® Scales Youth Engagement and Diversion

Session Description: Public health campaigns often face a critical gap between high-level media awareness and measurable, localized youth action. This session bridges that gap by examining the expansion of the Better Without It (BWI) initiative from a localized four-county pilot into a multi-tiered model deployed across Florida municipalities and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Led by Stanley Brizz of Uplift Drug-Free Coalitions, this presentation moves beyond basic media metrics to dissect how BWI utilizes an evidence-informed Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework across the entire prevention continuum. Attendees will analyze how BWI scales effectively across different community tiers: from grassroots municipal actions (such as targeted movie theater and community events in Nassau, Duval, and Putnam counties), to comprehensive county-wide youth diversion and alternative-to-suspension programming in Brevard and Escambia counties, up to full statewide infrastructures featuring localized youth ambassador networks, toolkits, and the "Level Up Leadership" pilot in Kentucky. Crucially, the session will highlight the powerful intersection where primary prevention meets early intervention. Through firsthand case studies and video narratives featuring diverse student perspectives-including youth sports ambassadors, peer leaders, and participants from the Escambia diversion program-presenters will demonstrate how coalitions can seamlessly operationalize BWI assets. Attendees will walk away with an actionable, scalable blueprint to transform a modern media message into a concrete, youth-led movement that reduces substance misuse and provides restorative pathways for at-risk youth.