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No foolin’ around
It’s snowing and blowing outside our window as we write this newsletter (seems like an April Fool’s joke, but the snow is serious). By the time this reaches you, it will likely be 50 degrees, calm and sunny. It’s springtime in the Midwest and every day is a surprise. Sound a bit like working with teenagers?
Many of our customers experience the seasonable nature of adolescents. One day they are sweet and childlike and in need of your help. The next day they are masters of their own world and want nothing to do with you. Just as we trust the weather is going to come around again, so will these kids. And if you stick with them through the tough patches, you know they’ll be better people for all of your efforts.
If you need a shovel, shovel it. If you have an umbrella, let the rain roll off. If you need a cookie, call us. You’re doing a wonderful thing! On behalf of all the young people who are going to know better one day, thank you. |
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April is National Child Abuse Awareness Month
Besides yourself, do you know people in your organization or community who can help educate others on the importance of proper infant care and child abuse prevention? Please help us increase awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the devastating effects of drug use on the unborn child with our child abuse awareness products. These dramatic and visual representations have a profound effect on those who witness them, making lessons about the importance of tender loving care on an infant more meaningful. If we can save even one life by making people aware of the consequences, we will have done a great thing.
Our Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator is being featured on CNN’s Nancy Grace, in connection with court cases about child abuse. It was shown twice last month when nannies were caught on camera shaking infants in their care. For a peek at the appearance, check out this link. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2008/03/17/grace.nanny.panel.cnn
Editor’s note: This clip contains disturbing footage of an actual baby shaking. Get more info on our Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Manikin and Drug-Affected Demonstrator. |
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Research study validates effectiveness!
Preliminary results from the year-long independent research on ySTART produced positive findings! The nationwide effectiveness study followed four groups of 500 students and concluded that “students who participated in the ySTART Program, including the weekend simulation with the PreventPak, improved substantially more in attitude, beliefs, knowledge, smoking intentions and levels of self-control concerning a smoking addiction than teens who experienced their school’s tobacco education curriculum alone.”
According to researcher Min Qi Wang, Ph.D., University of Maryland, “Results show that the ySTART Program is an effective educational tool in influencing middle school students’ attitudes toward smoking.”
Naturally we are celebrating this news at Realityworks. We designed this innovative approach to help young people form healthy behaviors at an early age. We took what we learned about science-based teaching tools in the development of RealCare Baby and applied it to the problem of tobacco addiction and youth smoking. When we teach young people not only why to refuse tobacco, but also how to do it, we give them essential life skills for life!
We’re smokin’ mad about what tobacco can do to kids. Aren’t you?
For more on ySTART visit www.smokingkids.com or www.realityworks.com/ystart.
New study shows genetic link to addiction and lung cancer. Read more about the critical need to reach young people before they get hooked by tobacco. |
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My name is Laura Wallace and I teach Family and Consumer Sciences at Boonville High School in Boonville, Indiana. I have used your program with my students for many years and I am impressed at what an effect carrying the Babies has on my students. This year one of my students was the focus of a newspaper article.
“I think every teenager should be required to take this class and have this experience,” she said. “I thought that at 16, I am mature and on my way to being a responsible adult. I am comfortable in who I am and am emotionally stable. But this experience has taught me that I am still a child, and there is a lot I want to do with my life before having kids.
“I have learned you shouldn’t have children until you can handle the stress and responsibility of putting another life before yours.”
Thank you for your Babies. This has been a very successful program here at BHS.
Sincerely,
- Laura Wallace
FACS Department Head
Boonville High School
Boonville, Indiana
 
Taking care of the Baby accounts for one-third of students’ grades in Laura Wallace’s Family and Consumer Sciences Child Development class. The students are given the option to write a 10-page research paper or care for Baby for three days. Natasha, featured in her community’s newspaper, is shown caring for her Baby between classes. She reports that the hallway is a dangerous place to do that just before the lunch bell!
Photos © Erin McCracken Courier & Press |
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Goodbye, friend of Realityworks
Last month we heard from Barbara Mettler, guidance counselor at Lakeside Middle School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who took time to write to us and introduce her replacement. Barbara is retiring after 32 years in education. Congratulations and best wishes, Barbara! She writes:
Thank you for all that your company has done educating our youth. I have used Realityworks simulators for the last 12 years with my middle school students. It is the most popular program in our school and I have had calls from parents from other middle schools asking me to include their daughters. I have always been delighted with the emotional 180-degree turn I see in students when they return their simulators on Monday mornings! On Fridays they are SO excited, and on Monday—quite the opposite!
Thank you again for all you do to help keep our youth healthy, safe and happy.
-Barbara Mettler |
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Enter and Win
We print your story and you get a chance to win free product! Tell us a little bit about your program and what makes it special. Send us a photo with some chicken scratch next to it. Draw us a picture. Call us and we’ll take the notes for you!
Winners will be chosen by random drawing at the end of the year. Lots of great products from us to you just for bragging up your program and sharing ideas that other program leaders might be able to use. Besides, the more you contribute to this newsletter, the less of our blah blah blah we have to read. Everybody wins!
Include your name and contact information, and a photo if possible—of either you or your program in use—and email your story to newsletter@realityworks.com.
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| Contest Rules |
- This contest is open to all organizations (not individuals) who are involved in educating people in life skills and health programs that could benefit from Realityworks products. The author of the story must be 18 years or older.
- One story per organization may be submitted for entry into the contest. An organization may submit additional stories but they will not be entered into the contest. The first story received by Realityworks, Inc. from an organization will be deemed the entry for the contest.
- All entries must be received via e-mail no later than midnight on December 31, 2008 for entry into the contest. Entries must be submitted to newsletter@realityworks.com.
- All entries must include the name of the author of the story, the name of the organization submitting the entry, the organization’s mailing address and telephone number and the following acknowledgement that the author wrote the story on behalf of the organization and that any prize won from submission of the story will belong to the organization and not the author of the story. Failure to include this information with the story will disqualify the story from entry in the contest.
- The winning organization will be announced in the January 2009 newsletter.
- Shipping costs are included in the prize.
- Realityworks, Inc. reserves the right to substitute prizes of equal value.
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Free Online Update available for RealCare Control Center Software
A new release is available for download! The engineers tweaked and fiddled and found a way to make Babies program even faster. In your Control Center software, under Help click on Check for Updates and you’ll have the latest and fastest version known to man. What will you do with all that free time?
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Tools You Can Use
 Unlike some companies, you can call the Realityworks product support line and get a real live person to help you with your product concerns. They can talk you through just about any concern or problem you're having with your Realityworks products.
In addition to the one-on-one help, we share their product support tips every month right here by the clover (because we’re lucky to have such great product support technicians, of course).
Product support hours are Monday through Thursday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time. Call 800.830.1416 or +1.715.830.2040. |
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 Product Support Tip O' the Month
Have you ever tried activating the Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator but the lights illuminate once around the head and nothing else happens? If your simulator seems unresponsive, it may be that you haven’t fully activated it.
Many people are tempted to use an index finger to press the ON/OFF button on the back of the simulator. However, the button is designed to require a greater effort, otherwise a simple bump could turn the Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator on inadvertently. If you used your finger and the lights went on, you probably succeeded at getting the button partway down.
The best way to fully engage the ON/OFF button is to use the battery cover key, a pencil eraser or the blunt end of a pen to press it down. Once the simulator is turned on, the lights should cycle THREE times and the simulator will begin to cry. Crying will continue until the simulator is shaken with enough force to stop the crying, until the ON/OFF button is fully depressed again, or until one hour passes (this might occur if the simulator is accidentally left ON).
Look for another stress-busting, life-simplifying, soul-cleansing product support tip next month. Product support hours are Monday through Thursday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time. Call 800.830.1416 or +1.715.830.2040. |
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