Bethlehem Centers of Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee

Bethlehem Centers of Nashville (BCN), a national mission agency of the United Methodist Church, provides education, direction, and service that lead to self-reliance for all participants and clients. The BCN Too Smart To Start team in Nashville provides a variety of comprehensive education and community outreach activities focusing on prevention for children, their parents, and the community.

The Too Smart To Start team focuses its efforts on 9- to 13-year-olds in area schools and youth-serving organizations through interactive classroom activities where Too Smart To Start materials and resources as well as Project Alcohol Free: Reach for the Stars, a science-based alcohol prevention curriculum that teaches youth the skills and strategies needed to resist pressures and establish anti-drug norms, are used. The team also provides youth the opportunity to participate in poster campaign art projects, open houses, Olympic Day Fest for youth campers, and other positive activities, while using the Too Smart To Start messages and materials to heighten youth awareness about underage alcohol use. To improve communication and increase interaction between youth and their parents, the team has developed a Too Smart To Start information packet that includes information on the harms of underage alcohol use and communication methods that parents can use when talking with their children about underage alcohol use.

The team reaches out to the community and increases public disapproval of underage alcohol use. Team members participate in various community awareness events throughout the year, such as family days, health fairs, local sporting activities, and symposiums, where messages and materials about underage alcohol use prevention and the Too Smart To Start initiative are shared. The team also has partnered with the media in the Nashville market, such as area newspapers, radio stations, and community access television, to promote their efforts. Dissemination channels used by the team include billboards, art/poster exhibitions at the Nashville Adventure Science Center and the First Center for Visual Arts, Too Smart To Start advertisements posted at area businesses, and literature generated by BCN.