Jeff Wolfsberg is an experienced keynote speaker at major events and conferences, dinners, awards presentations, and substance abuse initiative launches worldwide.  He can speak to a small community or school get together’s of 20 people, or international events of 3,000 or more.  He delivers highly customized insights for schools, colleges, and community sessions.

Jeff Wolfsberg is funny, unique, and his presentations are full of insightful stories, backed by research and statistics.

Jeff’s goal is to help schools and colleges enhance their prevention and intervention responses to underage drinking, teen drug use, and mental health.  His integrative prevention model adapts to the unique institutional culture of each client. 

 Jeff’s background and experience is in addiction counseling and adult learning.  For over a decade, he has mixed his passion for education and addiction treatment to create experiences that assist students, educators, and parents to create transformative and sustaining change in their lives.

Jeff’s Keynotes and Break Out Workshops Are Ideal For:

• Addictions, Education, and Prevention Conferences
• Community or County Substance Abuse Coalitions Training and Conference
• Youth Leadership Conferences | Peer Leadership and Educators Conferences
• Parent Conferences & Trainings

A brief list of conferences I have spoken at:

• State of Nebraska Addiction Professionals Conference | March 29, 2011 | Omaha, NE
• Independent School Association of the Central States | October 10, 2010 | Chicago, IL
• OACAC Overseas Association of College Admission Counselors | Boston, MA
• Mental Health in Independent Schools (MHIS) | New Haven, CT
• EARCOS (East Asia Regional Conference of Overseas Schools) | Beijing, China
• NESA (Near East South Asian Conference of Overseas Schools) | Bangkok, Thailand

Keynote Presentations

The following keynote presentations and training programs are unique because they include the motivation for learning along with the steps and processes to ensure success.  At the end of each program, the participants walk out with a new world view. Within this context, they are better able to use new skills to face their challenges, coach and lead others,  and engage and inspire students.

Back to the Future: What It Takes to Make Drug Education Work

“Collective clarity of purpose is the invisible leader” Mary Parker Follett

Most teens when presented with the idea of attending alcohol and other drug education presentations usually moan with disapproval.  Yet, when teens are asked what are the pressing issues in their lives, alcohol and other drug by peers is a key concern.  Why are we missing the target in engaging students in conversations they find transformative and meaningful?

We live in an increasingly complex and connected world. The pace of change and our ability to adapt is crucial for educators to develop programs and create conversations that matter for students.  What are we doing and not doing that gets in the way of our intended changes? With teen alcohol and other drug use at a 30-year high, it is crucial we work together as a community of caregivers to offer hope and support to those who are impacted by drug use.  We no longer need to operate using antiquated approaches when outstanding research and best-practice exists that can support students making the choice not to drink and use other drugs, intervene early on those students using in a dangerous way and guide them to care, and offer strategies to students to minimize the harms associated with alcohol and other drug use.

Objective #1 

Attendees will learn new communication strategies and ideas that accelerate and amplify the emergence of new solutions to the alcohol and other drug-related problems in their school and communities. Attendee’s insights will be shaped by who they are, why they came, and the questions that guide their journey.

Objective #2

Attendees will learn how to create conversation that matter and resonate with teens in their community.  We will explore and learn why the old conversations around alcohol and other drug education have failed, why we still hold on to them, how to let them go, and how to create new systems of change that have a real impact on behaviors and attitudes towards alcohol and other drug use.

Bringing It All Together:  Turning Theory Into Practice to Create Healthy School Communities

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug use among our nation’s youth is increasing at an alarming rate. However, 20 years of research have now provided the tools to change the current course of events and to reverse the increases in teenage alcohol and other drug use that began in 1992. We are beyond the point where we have to make uninformed choices about what might prevent or reduce underage drinking and teen drug use. Unfortunately, many schools rely on antiquated prevention programs, intuition, and historical approaches to prevention that are ineffective and politicalized.

Objective #1

• Add tools to your prevention, assessment, and early intervention toolkit.  Discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with implementation in both large and small schools settings – coed, single sex, boarding, boarding/day.

Objective #2

• Create action steps schools and districts can take to move toward more comprehensive and collaborative implementation of school-based drug education and health programs.  To create a deeper understanding of evidence-based and theory-driven substance abuse prevention and early intervention.

Breakout Session