L’Anse Creuse Teens Plan ‘Dialogue Day’ to Talk Marijuana, Bullying with Area Leaders

This Friday, L’Anse Creuse students and community leaders will drop the social barriers distancing their groups and continue a conversation started more than a decade ago.

Meeting at the ’s 11th annual Dialogue Day, the two groups will discuss a variety of topics all geared toward improving local communities.  

“(Dialogue Day is) for the students to basically have a voice in the community, to respectfully let community members, board members and administrators know what really goes on in schools and the community,” said Julie Rickel, L'Anse Creuse High School community service-learning coordinator.

Divided into small groups by topic, both adult and student members will be asked to chime in on issues of marijuana use, bullying, life transitions, underage drinking, stress and suicide, to name a few.

And though students may be seated at a table with Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham, they are encouraged to engage in open and honest discussion of sensitive issues, including those of teen drug use and sexting.

“It’s more about understanding how they can work together to address certain issues and ultimately strength their community,” Rickel said. “I want to make sure this is an opportunity for community leaders to receive input from the youth and guide future efforts.”

LCHS sophomore C.J. Carpenter will participate in her third Dialogue Day this Friday as a group facilitator.

“As a facilitator, you listen more than talk,” Carpenter said. “You try to get everyone who needs to, to talk. I like the openness that seems to come from everyone. Coming together as equals helps you see the viewpoints of others that you wouldn’t normally see.”

With students, rather than adults leading the discussion, group members meet on equal ground and dynamic of conversation changes.

“We would like more of a meaningful dialogue between adults and students,” Rickel said. “With the adults, we want to give them the opportunity to see students that have experienced hardships, or do make the right choices. Also to have adults be directly involved with the youth, making that connection and seeing that the teens are not always so different from them.”

The day’s activities will start with a presentation by Shannon Cohen, coordinator of the Kent County Prevention Coalition–the organization leading the Above the Influence anti-drug campaign in West Michigan–and conclude with a review of the main points discussed in each of the 10 topic sessions.

And when the day’s discussions and presentations have come to an end?

“Hopefully, (the students) can come back and verbalize what kind of experience they had and be that voice of what the laws are (to their peers) … and it will allow the adult community–the decision makers–to focus on the issues that are relevant to the teenagers,” Rickel said.

Some 120 and from all L'Anse Creuse middle and high schools are expected to participate in Friday’s Dialogue Day, which will be held from 8:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church in Clinton Township.