Welcome to the Project Zero Online Educational Tutorial!
This past summer, the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) launched Project Zero, a program aimed at promoting tobacco free sport in Alberta and, as a larger goal, tobacco use reduction in general.
Project Zero came about as a sponsorship project patterned after a tobacco free program in the Quebec colleges’ conference, the FQSE. This tobacco free program, called “De Facto” (impressive, see it online at http://www.sportetudiant.com/fre/DeFacto/index.cfm ), is all about sharing the “truth” about tobacco use amongst their members and those Quebec youth they influence as role models and mentors. The ACAC decided to embark on a similar project and was successful in receiving funding from the Tobacco Reduction Unit of Alberta Health Services. Project Zero is the result, a pilot project intended to both whet the appetites of you, our student-athletes and to provide opportunities to influence those young people with whom we come into contact each season as extensions of our athletic programs.
We envisaged a “De Facto-type” program for the ACAC where we might realize sustainable grant funding to both realize financial support for the Conference and to further our mission of serving Alberta youth through sport by implementing an anti-tobacco program which clearly would be beneficial to the people of Alberta. Now we are pleased to welcome you as the most important persons in this program. You, our student-athletes, are at the “sharp end” of our athletic programming and Project Zero.
During this fall semester, some of you will visit elementary schools, junior high schools and high schools in outreach programs where you will again have the opportunity to share the message of Project Zero. Some of you will present our tobacco free message to those students who visit your campuses to participate in promotional high school tournaments. In all, we expect to come into contact with 16,000 youth through our sports programming this year! Together we can make a difference!
Do you know what our ACAC Conference mission statement is?
The ACAC is the governing body for intercollegiate athletics in Alberta. Its mission is to foster the development of the student-athlete through the administration and promotion of intercollegiate athletics as part of the educational experience and to provide a leadership role in the development of sport in Alberta.
We are pleased some of you will join us directly in this mission and come on board with Project Zero. For those of you who already have . . . THANK YOU!!!
We invite you to view this tutorial as both a personal educational opportunity and as a tool to be applied in mentoring youth athletes, now and in the future as you serve the sporting community as role models, mentors, coaches and leaders
Project Zero, was based on the following concept: “Zero becomes an identified tobacco free goal and a challenge to people of all ages – zero youth taking up the habit, zero effects to health and lifestyle, zero tolerance for tobacco usage amongst our student-athletes.”
To accomplish this, we believe the “tobacco free” message will be most effective if aimed at those youth who are most directly influenced through our collegiate sport programming, while at the same time retaining somewhat our original goal of presenting a “tobacco free” message to you, our coaches and student-athletes.
Our member colleges interacted directly with over 7,500 youth in sports programming during camps this past summer! With access to this large group of young people, we feel we are in a unique position to educate a significant number of youth about the dangers of tobacco use.
Project Zero is aimed directly at those Alberta youth you influence as role models, coaches and mentors. We expect that Project Zero will not only be effective in presenting a “tobacco free” message to youth throughout this last six months of 2010, while the program is active, but it will also have an effect on the attitudes of these youth toward tobacco use in the future. At the same time, we expect to encourage you to see the impact you may well have to influence the lifestyle decisions of Alberta youth well into the future as community sports coaches and leaders.
Thank you for leading our charge in the pursuit of tobacco free sport! Proceed on now to complete the online tutorial. I hope you enjoy it!
Robert D. Day, Ph.D., General Manager
Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference
October 1, 2010
Acknowledgments
The Project Zero ACAC Student-Athlete Online Tutorial is dedicated to the pursuit of tobacco free sport. The Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) is grateful to Alberta Health Services (AHS) for awarding the grant which has made Project Zero possible. In particular, we wish to thank the two AHS Tobacco Reduction Counsellors who have assisted with the development of the Project Zero tutorial: Jennifer Pollard, B.HSc., Tobacco Reduction Counsellor, Prevention Youth Community Services, Addiction and Mental Health, Edmonton Zone, Alberta Health Services, and Kari Jesswein, Ba.RLS, Tobacco Reduction Counsellor, Alberta Health Services - Addictions and Mental Health. We are also grateful to Rene Sharp, Instructional Designer, Educational Technology Services, Medicine Hat College, and Andrea Wilkes, Graphic Designer & Multimedia Developer, Medicine Hat College who were gracious with their time in creating the production of the tutorial. Finally, we extend our thanks to our ACAC Office staff, Erin Cameron and Anthony Wong, who contributed to this production as they do with each task the Office undertakes.
