Leadership and Life Lessons

For high school students, summer leadership conferences are empowering. YADAPP helps teens keep their schools drug free.

By Anastasia Slepukhova

This summer I had the privilege of spending five days with my group from the Youth Council of the Unified Prevention Collation of Fairfax (UPC) at the Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Project (YADAPP), a leadership conference in its 29th year.

The conference was facilitated at the beautiful campus of Longwood University. We were greeted with the warmest of welcomes from the whole YADAPP staff before we even had the chance to get off the bus! This being my first YADAPP conference, I had no idea how much fun and excitement I was about to experience.

Having attended five leadership conferences in the past two years, I have never experienced so much enthusiasm and cooperation from a crowd this large. The staff did a wonderful job planning our schedules to make sure we had a balanced day filled with motivational speakers, workshops, time for food, and, of course, time to relax and hit the pool!

The program’s goal is to empower teens to keep their schools and communities alcohol and drug free by taking positive peer leadership roles. The most inspirational parts of this conference were the motivational guest speakers. Each and every speaker had something special to share with us.

Miss America 2010 Carissa Cameron of Virginia taught me that there are choices, there are always choices and the decisions we make affect other people in our lives. The highlight of her presentation was when she sang a Beyoncé song at my request for the whole audience.

However, my favorite motivational speaker was David Edward Garcia. He is a Mexican-American and has had a difficult life growing up and getting where he is today due to prejudice and people not believing in him. His message on how he overcame his troubles was powerful to me because I can relate to him being a foreigner myself from Kyrgyzstan.

Mad Dog (Dale Messmer) did a real good job at explaining the life and hardships of an inmate in a penitentiary. This really opened my eyes because jails are nothing like they make them out to be in movies, and a place I definitely want to avoid at all costs now.

I must have cried at least three times throughout this convention because of the challenges these people had to face in their lives. Nevertheless, I left with a new perspective on alcohol and drugs that I will take back and share with others in my community.

The bonds I have developed with the students I attended with are wonderful, and I know I can always turn to any of them if I am ever faced with a difficult decision. Knowing I have a support group in UPC filled with adults and students alike that can be successful and live happy, enriched lives without abusing substances gives me a group of individuals to look up to and a group I can fit in with. I am very thankful to UPC for sponsoring me to attend YADAPP because it was truly life changing and will inspire me to make the right choices.

I look forward to the coming school year and the opportunity to make a difference with the UPC Youth Council and our efforts to keep youth safe and drug free.

UPC welcomes other high school students to join the Youth Council. An online application is available here, and questions can be directed to Youth Council Coordinator Samara Kimmelman at skimmelman@upcfairfax.org.

UPC Youth Council member Anastasia Slepukhova is a student at Lake Braddock Secondary School, where she is the Class of 2016’s treasurer. She also serves as the Key Club Division 20A lieutenant governor and a representative on the Fairfax County Student Human Rights Commission.

The Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County is a nonprofit organization with more than 50 community partners working together to keep youth and young adults safe and drug-free. Visit www.unifiedpreventioncoalition.org.