(Lebanon, OH) - Can I share my medication? Is it safe to message strangers on social media? What is consent?

These questions and more were answered at the Warren County Board of Developmental Disabilities (WCBDD) second annual Safety Night on July 23, 2024.

The event was hosted for individuals aged 18 years and older who receive services from WCBDD to learn about personal safety and well-being, including internet safety, creating healthy relationships, stranger danger, medication use and misuse, high-risk alcohol use, dangers of smoking and vaping, and marijuana use.

Roy Lutz, Safe on Main project coordinator, said people with developmental disabilities are a vulnerable population more likely to become victimized, but education is lacking.

“Everybody else is getting those life skills and that education through school. This is a population of people with high vulnerability and nobody's working with them, that I'm aware of, on topics around healthy relationships, safe sex, internet safety,” Lutz said.

WCBDD hosted Safety Night with the help of three local organizations:

• Safe on Main, a local organization that provides comprehensive services to domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking survivors including crisis shelter, court advocacy, therapy, and support groups.
• Talbert House, a Cincinnati-based organization that provides a range of services aimed at improving mental health and preventing substance abuse.
• The Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition of Warren County, a local organization that provides prevention education and efforts within the community to prevent addiction.

Lutz and Madison Martin of Safe on Main discussed internet safety and how to protect yourself on social media, including how to keep your personal information private.

The organization discussed the difference between a predator and a bully- bullies will be mean up front, while predators will be nice as a manipulation tactic. They discussed ways in which online predators could gain trust, and how they could misuse that trust to steal from their victims.

As an example, Martin used Scar from “The Lion King,” to explain that a person may seem friendly, although they have bad intentions.

“One thing that I personally, absolutely love about this population is that they have the biggest hearts, and, therefore, that also leads them to having very easy trust with people, and that can be a problem in today's world,” Martin said. “It breaks my heart that they become victims to these things and get things taken from them, whether it's money, whether it's explicit pictures, whether it's personal information, credit cards, all of that. And we want to make sure that they have the skills needed to protect themselves and to identify what's real and what's not.”

Valerie Walch of Talbert House spoke in-depth about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and how to have a healthy relationship. She further explained what consent is in a relationship, including identifying what you feel comfortable with, how to communicate with a partner about consent, and signs that someone does not consent.

The Talbert House presenter also discussed the impacts of vaping, including creating a huge expense, a crippling addiction, and potentially dire health issues.

After the presentations, participants visited safety stations to learn more about each topic that was presented, including a table set up by the Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition of Warren County.

Safety Night will be held again next year.

For more information, contact Megan Becker at (859) 653-7445 or megan.becker@warrencountydd.org.