Happy February, we are so excited to recap another wonderful month of trainings, community outreach, and youth-led change.

You can find information below on our upcoming final OS, Inc. training and reminders about the online training platform full of self-paced trainings available at your fingertips.

We want to continue to encourage everyone to make the most of the remaining months of this school year, and continue striving for change.

To end the month of January, Operation Snowball, Inc. wrapped up another incredible regional training session, featuring national Speaker, Zion Givens. Zion led an engaging session on the overall challenges and opportunities that social media present in our society today. Students were challenged to think about the impact of social media and create action plans to educate others on both its benefits and risks, especially regarding cyberbullying. 

Zion's empowering parting words, "you are worthy and you are enough. I cannot wait to see your legacy," left a lasting impression on all participants. Throughout the evening, students dove into the digital world, uncovering the true impact of social media and learning how to identify and combat cyberbullying. It was an amazing night of reflection, growth, and taking ownership of the digital space to foster positive change.

West Aurora High School OS Team had an excellent facilitation training with a great room of leaders who were excited to deepen their leadership skills and boost their confidence in their abilities.

This training, FREE to you, is designed to equip youth leaders with the skills and techniques necessary to lead, guide, and manage group discussions, workshops, and activities in a way that encourages participation, fosters productive dialogue, and ensures all voices are heard. Throughout this training students are encouraged to create positive, safe, and inclusive environments that promote deep conversations within groups. Youth leaders are able to practice handling difficult conversations, resolving any potential conflicts, and keeping their groups on track with their discussions.

West Aurora and many other OS Teams have taken advantage of this free training that comes with every accreditation - you can too by contacting Michaela@ilabh.org to schedule.

West Leyden OS Leaders hosted another "Kindness Day" at Westdale elementary school, promoting kindness and the power to choose positivity every day. Giving back to their community and proving the power of OS is a yearly tradition of West Leyden, that continues to leave a lasting impact of their community and OS Leaders.

Giving these "Kindness Day" presentations is a powerful tool for tackling difficult conversations with our future generation of leaders. By speaking to elementary students, youth leaders can use their creativity to explain the material to different perspectives, highlight the topics that are important for every age group to work on, and break down barriers that might make these conversations difficult to have later in the lives of these elementary students.

Highland High School OS Impact Leaders hosted a parent's night out, where they shared an "Inside Out" theme night with elementary students while their parents enjoyed a child-free night. These HHS OS Impact Leaders promoted a lot of conversations and laughter with the elementary students in their care.

Operation Snowball missions are about adapting the materials to fit the needs of the community and HHS OS Impact has done a fantastic job of this. If you want to reach out and get ideas from other OS Teams, you can get connected through the Absorb Collaborations Activity page or you can reach out to us and we can assist you in adapting the OS missions to best fit your Team and community.

Highland Middle School OS Youth Leaders have been busy giving presentations to the rest of their peers about ATOD use and prevention. This is a great way for students to really take the information that they are learning through OS to really encourage their peers to live substance free lives.

Having the opportunity to give these ATOD use and prevention presentations to their peers is a great use of OS materials and gives students a chance to exercise their leadership skills. This fantastic group of OS leaders create a positive and encouraging environment to present difficult topics and engage in difficult conversations with their peers.

The Absorb training platform is a FREE platform for any accredited OS Team or OS member, this platform offers self-paced training sessions along with registration access to future virtual regional trainings. Absorb contains an adult and student portal that allows every OS Member to engage in presentations by renowned speakers, receive completion certificates, and access past virtual session recordings.

If you have any questions about how to register yourself or your team for the OS Absorb Training Platform, please contact Michaela@ilabh.org. If you want to check out all of the amazing features available to you through Absorb check out the link below for a quick walkthrough!

An OS Absorb account allows OS members to have FREE access to a variety of resources that are beneficial to OS Team programing and development.

Absorb currently houses various topics for OS members to dive into including;

• current trends in the field of prevention
• a helpful talk on increasing protective factors for overall mental well-being

This platform also contains numerous other resources to dive into;

• a resource tab that contains OS toolkits to help expand ideas for OS events, programming, and overall OS missions
• the OS Implementation Guide, this guide gives OS members the deepest dive into OS programming, expectations, the history of Operation Snowball, and ideas to promote even more change in Illinois and beyond!
• Community section to connect, celebrate, and brainstorm with other Adult Mentors throughout the state

Meredith Steciuk

Stevenson High School OS

Hear from Meredith about the lifelong connections and lasting impact Operation Snowball has had in her life:

"I first found out about Snowball my freshman year from my biology teacher who encouraged me to go. When I was a freshman, Snowball was not something I would have even considered, but I decided to take a risk and go. When I first got to the camp Snowball was taking place at, I was introduced to my small group which was a diverse group of people and I didn't know any of them. At the end of the trip, though, we became friends. I looked up a lot to my leaders because they were all seniors who had amazing leadership skills. Throughout the many activities we did, they made me feel supported and loved, which is something that I'd never felt from peers before. Overall my experience as a participant was very positive and life changing- I found that my confidence had boosted and I became very comfortable in my own skin. I knew that I was going to return every year. I found out, however, that I could become a staff member for the next year's retreat, which I applied to become right away and got accepted. I wanted to give participants the same experience that my leaders had given me. My first year as a leader was an amazing experience. I made so many new friends which is something as a freshman before joining snowball I'd have never thought would happen to me. I feel like I really developed good leadership skills during this first experience. I learned how to support people better which is something I've taken into my life more. 

Between the second and third trip, I joined the OS, Inc. Board of Directors as a Youth Advocate, which even furthered Snowball's impact on me. I was able to attend many workshops and meet many new amazing people which further developed my leadership skills and supported my mental health, as I felt supported by so many people. My second year as a staff was truly magical. My small group was filled with the most amazing people. Usually, we plan games to play with our groups; however conversations flowed in my group so naturally and we got to know each other so well and developed a close bond. I hope that I gave them the same impact snowball gives me. 

     In summary, Snowball has impacted my life so much. I have good leadership skills, I'm confident in my own skin, and I have met so many people who are some of my best friends. Since this year is my last year of Snowball, I'm hoping to get many new people to join in order to experience the same impact the Snowball gives to many people."

CGTI hosted its biggest Mid-Year to date with a maximum capacity crowd of over 300 individuals. This event hosted youth leaders from 27 counties throughout Illinois, four other states and Ireland, and over 30 different schools. Actions teams were able to come together and celebrate their successes from the first half of the school year, and begin planning how to implement new changes into their community-based plans for the second half of the school year. Youth leaders were able to dive into deep conversations, hear from renowned speakers from all over, and develop even more leadership skills throughout this weekend. 

After celebrating an amazing Mid-Year event, we are excited to announce the dates for CGTI 2025, make sure to mark your calendars for July 13 - 17, at Eastern Illinois University! We are counting down the days until we are all back together and cannot wait to see what our Action Teams get done in the next few months! 

We know that there is a lot to get done before the end of the school year and before CGTI 2025 happens but we want to encourage everyone to take some time to go over the different CGTI attendee levels! Registration will be here before you know it, so reach out to natalie@ilabh.org with any questions! 

Problem Gambling Awareness Month (PGAM) is a crucial time to shine a spotlight on the risks and impact of gambling among youth. This month encourages young people, and educators to recognize the signs of problem gambling, such as an obsession with betting, borrowing money to gamble, or neglecting responsibilities. With the rise of online gaming and sports betting, youth are more exposed than ever to gambling-like activities that can lead to addictive behaviors. As PGAM occurs during the month of March, major sporting events such as march madness occur during this period. PGAM promotes prevention through education, fostering open conversations about the risks of gambling. and providing resources for those struggling or at risk. Empowering youth with knowledge and coping strategies is key to preventing the long-term consequences of problem gambling.

OS, Inc. | operationsnowballinc.org