4 months ago
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Middle and high schoolers in Arkansas needing help with addiction recovery have a new way to regain control of their lives.
The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) Teen Center opened July 11 in Little Rock providing Arkansas’s first community-based youth recovery program, addressing the urgent need for youth addiction support.
YEP curriculum coordinator Rebecca Webber has been working for months as part of the Wolfe Street Foundation to open their Rainwood Road location with the help of the Blue and You Foundation.
"You often have to wait until it gets really bad until you get support, and that's the beauty of a prevention program,” Webber said. “You don't have to wait."
According to the Arkansas Department of Human Services, one in seven adolescents in the state struggle with substance use disorders.
To help the kids in the program understand how to navigate those struggles and others, a semester-long empowerment curriculum is in place, staffed by certified peer support specialists like Billie Jean Mayben.
"(There are) an endless amount of possibi...
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