Iowa State is helping teens across the state take an active role in preventing substance abuse and drunk driving.

Last week ISU hosted the eighth-annual Get A Grip conference, which is sponsored by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau and the ISU Department of Public Safety.

This year’s conference consisted of two sessions, each lasting two-and-a-half days. Groups of teens and adults who attended the conference were educated about the issues of substance abuse and also developed action plans to implement in their communities.

Amy Cody, a program coordinator for Get a Grip, said the program attempts to provide leadership and communication skills.

“[Teens and adults] come in community groups so when they make an action plan, they have a team of at least four to implement the plan,” Cody said.

Cody said groups that have attended the conference in the past have started a wide variety of programs. One group from Davenport started a program called Drug Free Youth In Touch, or DFYIT. The group bought a moose costume and created the character “Max the Moose.”

Students at the local grade schools write letters to Max with questions about substance abuse, and teens trained at Get A Grip reply.

Cody said this is a good example of the type of programs they encourage.

“We encourage positive programs,” Cody said. “Some groups still do car crash stagings. That’s all right, but we also encourage positive prevention programs.”

The conference featured a variety of speakers and activities, including Zeb Davenport from Virginia and Bill Cordes from Kansas. Both are nationally recognized youth speakers, and both have been involved with Get A Grip in the past.

“They get great reviews, so we always try to get them back,” Cody said.

New to this year’s conference was a presentation by Engineering Animation, Inc. (EAI). The company, started by two ISU mechanical engineering professors and two graduate students, presented animations created for courtroom litigation cases.

Erica Brizzi, public relations coordinator for EAI, said recreating traffic collisions through animation is something EAI has been involved with in the past.

Matt Carney, senior software engineer for EAI, gave the presentation. Carney said he was approached about getting involved after giving a similar presentation to a group of Boy Scouts.

“Since the slant was toward the [Governors Traffic Safety Bureau], we presented animation from litigation cases to show kids what you can do with animations,” Carney said. He said the teens were most interested in some of the examples of video game animation done by EAI.

While at the conference, teens also got to experience a little bit of life at ISU, staying in Friley Hall and using facilities at Beyer Hall and Lied Recreation Center.

Cody said she was pleased with this year’s conference.

“Overall, it went very well,” Cody said. “The session at the end brings it all together, and usually gets pretty emotional. It’s good to see that by the end [of the conference] they’ve brought together their personal goals and their community goals.”