Kirk Young introduced Melanie Witkowski, Community Educator at the Chautauqua Alcohol & Substance Abuse Council since 2005. She has her MS in Education from Walden University and her BS in Elementary Education from SUNY Fredonia. She is a Credentialed Prevention Professional certified through the Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services. She is on the Board of Directors for the Western New York Chemical Dependency Consortium and the Council on Addictions of New York State. She is on the governance board for Chautauqua Tapestry and is on the leaders Board for the Hope Chautauqua Coalition. She is a train the trainer of the Teen Intervene Brief Intervention Program and is trained to facilitate more than 8 different evidence-based Drug and Alcohol Prevention programs. She lives in Dunkirk; is married to Christopher Witkowski a Dunkirk Police Sergeant and they have two children, Ashton and Kearstin.

 

CASAC’s mission is to decrease the likelihood of initiation of any alcohol, tobacco and other drug use for youths ages 5-19 and increase adult alcohol, tobacco and other drug use education, skills and awareness by effective education of the community on positive life choices.

 

Youth prevention programs under the umbrella of evidence-based programs include Life Skills Training, Alcohol Literacy Challenge, Too Good Programs, Sport-Prevention + Wellness, and Keeping it Real.

 

Melanie presented a well-organized talk on alcohol and drug abuse in Chautauqua County that was sometimes disappointing, shocking and displeasing. But her presentation also included the explanations of many excellent programs prepared and presented by CASAC everywhere in Chautauqua County, not only for children and young people, but for adults as well.

 

PLEASE, PLEASE take a look at what is available on the CASAC website! In addition to all of the problems out there, CASAC offers many programs to help solve the problems.

 

Melanie offered many solutions to dealing with drug/alcohol abusers in the home such as lock boxes and demonstrated deactivation bags which are available for each of us to use to deactivate any drugs we may have in our medicine cabinets.

 

Remember that brains in women do not fully develop until age 25 and age 28 in men, therefore we need to protect and encourage young people from overusing drug and alcohol to avoid brain problems.

 

She also spoke to the legalization of marijuana – which she is sharply opposed to. The TCH levels in various marijuana differs so greatly and marijuana is fat soluble and therefore remains in the body for far longer than alcohol.

 

A fascinating presentation!

Jim Smith introduced our speaker today, Amanda Gesing.  Amanda is the 21st Century Grant Coordinator for Jamestown Public Schools.  She is originally from Northern Kentucky and is a graduate of Northern Kentucky University.  

 

Amanda has over 17 years of experience in youth development and school community collaboration.  She began her career at Big Brother & Big Sisters of Greater Cincinnati where she coordinated school based mentoring programs in 3 different states and 12 districts.  

 

In 2007, Amanda began working for Chautauqua Striders.  Over her 10 years at Striders, she oversaw youth mentoring programs, training and recruiting mentors and eventually became Director of Mentoring and Life Skills Education.  More recently, she has transititioned to her new role at Jamestown Public Schools.  

 

21st Century Community Learning Centers provide opportunities for academic enrichment, particularly for students attending low-performing schools; offer supplemental services such as youth development programs, after school activities, health and wellness education, and counseling; and help families of students served by the centers become more involved in their children’s education.

 

Jamestown Public Schools will receive $579,500 over a five-year period, yielding nearly $3 million dollars over the life of the grant for Jamestown Public Schools. The funds will be used by Jamestown Schools to provide supplemental services and enrichments for some 500 Jamestown elementary and middle school students.

 

Jamestown Public Schools relies on many community partners to ensure the success of this program.  Partnerships allow us to bring in experts into the school day or after school programs.

 

JPS is looking to take the collaboration aspect up a notch.  The district is looking at all the data to be more intentional to ensure referral of the right students to the right programs.  Students face large hurdles in their lives and it is important to have all the key players in collaboration on the same page to make this program even more successful.

 

Thanks for a great presentation Amanda!

 

Today's speaker was David M. Crane, the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), from April 2002 to July 15, 2005.  During his tenure, he indicted, among others, the then-President of Liberia, Charles Taylor.  Ran was replaced as chief prosecutor by his deputy Desmond de Silva. On April 26, 2012, the SCSL, sitting in The Hague, convicted Taylor on various charges.

 

SCSL prosecutors Crane, DeSilva, and Brenda Hollis traveled to The Hague, Netherlands on Sept. 26, 2013 to witness the upholding of Taylor’s 50-year sentence by the special court’s appeals judges.

 

Crane spent 30 years working for the United States federal government. His former posts include Director of the Office of Intelligence Review, assistant general counsel of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Waldemar A. Solf Professor of International Law at the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s School.

 

Crane has a law degree from Syracuse University College of Law and a M.A. in African Studies from Ohio University.

 

Crane was appointed a Professor of Practice at Syracuse University College of Law in 2006. He teaches international criminal law, international law, national security law, and the law of armed conflict.[2][3]

In conjunction with Syracuse University College of Law students, Crane started Impunity Watch, an online publication which seeks to inform the world of human rights violations in real-time.

 

Another Syracuse University College of Law project is the Syria Accountability Project (SAP). SAP was begun in 2011 as a project of Crane’s International Legal Practice course at SU Law and now involves 50 SU law students. SAP works collectively with several international organizations to provide impartial analysis of open source materials so that President Bashar al-Assad and his subordinates—as well as members of the Syrian opposition—can be prosecuted openly and fairly under the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute, and/or Syrian Penal Law.[4]

 

On Oct. 29, 2013 Crane testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations about the possible establishment of a Syrian War Crimes Tribunal.

 

In 2012, Crane was elected to chair the board of the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, New York.

 

Crane spoke to his editing of the recently released book, The Founders, a book about the four pioneering individuals who launched the first modern-era international criminal tribunals.

 

The Balkan Wars, the Rwanda genocide, and the crimes against humanity in Cambodia and Sierra Leone spurred the creation of international criminal tribunals to bring the perpetrators of unimaginable atrocities to justice. When Richard Goldstone, David Cane, Robert Petit, and Luis Moreno-Ocampo received “the Call” – each set out on a unique quest to build an international criminal tribunal and launch its first prosecutions. Never before have the founding International Proseecutors told the behind-the-scenes stories of their historic journey. With no blueprint and little precedent, each was a path-breaker. This book contains the first-hand accounts of the challenges they faced, the obstacles they overcame, and the successes they achieved in obtaining justice for millions of victims.