As parent educators and school chemical health professionals, we know a secret. That secret is about parents. We'd be glad to tell it, if we could find the right venue. Once again, the information from the Minnesota Student Survey supports our belief that the relationship a teen has with his/her parent or another caring adult is a significant factor in deterring at-risk behaviors. However, getting parents to an evening parent education meeting is next to impossible. There are plenty of reasons why parents can't attend our offerings-lives are jammed with other responsibilities, we're stressed in our workplace and just grateful to be home, children need to be driven around from place to place in the evenings, and for some, TV is hard to leave. Yet we professionals know what valuable, even lifesaving information we have to share. The challenge for us is a marketing one-how do we make our product more inviting than all the other competing commitments.

In Hopkins we have had some significant success attracting crowds by collaborating with the community in publicizing and presenting Minnesota Student Survey information. We have found that meetings held in a community building other than a school attract a larger and more diverse crowd. We also have found that advertising through community committees and publications is more productive than using only school communications. A second successful marketing tool is to involve youth in presenting the information. Parents and other community members will come to hear students speak. Perhaps they believe they will learn more from teens about their own child, or they come out of a fear of what's happening in a world they can't trust. Whatever the draw, we continue to marvel at the turnout when students are on stage.

The format we have used is a simple one. In a 90 minute presentation, an adult spends about 30 minutes reviewing the student survey information, stressing the local nature of the data and the concerns that are most significant in our district. Then a panel of students respond to the data based on their personal journey. We have used recovering students, student leaders, athletes, students from the alternative program, special education students and students who take an active part in our chemical free group. The success of the panel has been the honesty of the students coupled with the variety of their experiences. The exchange between adults and teens has never failed to be anything short of magic. When students begin to talk, parents lean forward in their chairs, silence falls over the crowd, and the adults' learning curve makes a giant leap.

Misti Snow has demonstrated repeatedly in the Mindworks column of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that students are deep thinkers and great communicators. They are hungry for adults to listen as they have deep wisdom. Our experience in our community has reinforced that belief. Almost without exception, young people call on us as adults to behave in an adult fashion. They encourage us to open our eyes and see their world in its reality. They draw from us an urgency to act on their behalf and for their safety. It is impossible to hear a request from a child and not feel obligated to respond. If adult action is our goal, then awareness is step one. We have been gratified by the response of our adult community to its youth. Such a simple solution.

Sharon MacDonald has been in the Hopkins, MN high school for 26 years as a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker.