The Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY) is proud to announce the Empower Series —a collection of virtual events aimed to help youth, advocates, and decision makers empower themselves and others to make healthy choices.

The Empower Series will be a collaborative effort with Prevention Connections and will feature workshops and events on a number of topics related to making healthy choices like nutrition, tobacco and nicotine products use prevention, substance use prevention, staff development, capacity building, and more.

“We know that healthy choices lead to healthy outcomes. This series provides an opportunity for individuals and organizations to access a variety of free training resources that promote a healthy lifestyle.” said VFHY Executive Director Marty Kilgore.

Since March about 1,000 attendees have taken part in free virtual workshops or events hosted by VFHY. This includes those who attended a July webinar with Dr. Brian King of the Centers for Disease Control about the ongoing youth vaping epidemic. That webinar was co-hosted by Prevention Connections and had about 400 people attend.

“Even in these challenging times, there remains a substantial need to continue providing the most relevant and useful resources to partners across the state and the country that are dedicated to helping their community be healthier. We are thrilled to collaborate with the partner best positioned to do just that.” said Prevention Connections Board of Trustees Chair Robyn Zacharias.

Empower Series kicks off on Monday, September 28 with two virtual workshops covering topics of youth vaping and substance use, and staff development. All Empower Series virtual events will continue to be offered to attendees at no cost through December 2020. An up to date list of currently scheduled virtual events can be found on VFHY’s website.