Prevention Plus Wellness Mission & Story

Who are we?

Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW), LLC, headquartered in St. Augustine, Florida, is a family-run nation-wide education business providing brief evidence-based multi-health behavior youth, young adult and adult programs, parent training programs and multi-media campaigns for improving the mental and physical wellness of individuals and communities. 

PPW's "whole-health" programs address multiple co-occurring health risks in single interventions addressing alcohol, marijuana, e-cigarette, or opioid and fentanyl use, as well as physical inactivity, poor nutrition, lack of sleep and daily stress. 

Our one-session Screening and Brief Interventions (SBIs), including Screening, Brief Intervention & Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) programs, are a perfect solution to providing effective prevention in busy schools, organizations, clinics, and communities, as well as a cost-effective strategy for motivating youths’ healthy habit and identity development through built-in multi-behavior goal setting and monitoring. 

PPW program manuals include easy-to-follow scripted protocols to provide to youth and adults individually and in groups. 

Online and paper pretest and posttest and instructor's surveys allow providers to monitor program fidelity and effectiveness and online self-paced program implementer courses permit practitioner training at their convenience.    

How we began

Our initial evidence-based alcohol and drug prevention program (SPORT) was developed when challenged with the problem of how to provide a substance use prevention intervention for student athletes attending a one-time physical examination session. 

Our solution was a practical, 45-minute screening and brief motivational intervention aimed at preventing harmful substance use but also targeting other common health risk behaviors among youth. 

These behaviors included not getting regular physical activity or participating in sports, skipping breakfast and other unhealthy eating patterns, and inadequate sleep (daily stress was added later).

Together, these behaviors are essential for improving mental and physical wellbeing and performance of youth in sports, school, work, relationships and nearly any life activity. 

We quickly realized that a one-session multiple health risk behavior prevention program that promoted healthy habits along with goal setting skills and positive identity was critically needed for ALL youth and highly practical for use in busy school and community settings. 

From this initial program we created extended multi-session programs for youth (i.e., SPORT 3 PPW and SPORT Health Behaviors) as well as an evidence-based alcohol and drug Prevention Plus Wellness screening and brief intervention for young adults (InShape), and then evidence-informed adaptations of the initial two programs addressing marijuana, e-cigarettes, opioids and fentanyl, alcohol and cannabis, opioids and stimulants and other PPW programs for youth and young adults.  

We adopted these brief interventions to create parallel multi-health behavior programs for adults (including a weight loss program), parent training programs and media campaigns targeting various substance use/misuse prevention problems. 

In addition, we added the use of validated substance abuse screening tools (i.e., CRAFFT and ASSIST-Lite) for assessing youth and adults at high risk for referral to treatment in our adapted Screening, Brief Intervention & Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) PPW programs to provide a "whole-health" prevention intervention for all participants.

Today, we continue to expand our program line and have included self-paced online program implementer training and unlimited program and training licenses to help organizations and coalitions quickly and easily increase their community, region, or state prevention and wellness program footprint. 

For more information, email us: info@preventionpluswellness.com or call: (904) 472-5022. 

Why we do what we do 

In March 2019 my youngest brother Scott G. Werch passed away from alcohol use disorder, also referred to as alcoholism. 

He was just 53 years old, and he left behind three beautiful daughters, an equally beautiful grandson and granddaughter, his mother and three older brothers of which I am the eldest.

Scott was a navy veteran who courageously served on the USS Ranger aircraft carrier as a crash and rescue specialist. 

His actions saved the lives of his crewmates who crashed and exploded their aircraft on the flight deck he oversaw.

He was an incredibly brave and strong person, but he was also extremely sensitive and gentle. 

My brother began drinking early in his life and his brain disorder progressed rapidly. 

He told me that during R and R while in the navy he would hole up in any nearby motel room at whatever port he was docked at and drink an entire bottle of vodka each night. 

Vodka was his drink of choice because his crewmates and commanders could not easily smell alcohol on his breath.  

Scott was in and out of treatment and recovery several times with varying degrees of success, but he eventually relapsed each time.

In the end he passed away alone in his apartment with two empty vodka bottles by his side.

As a youth, my brother was never given the opportunity to receive an evidence-based substance use prevention program that could have postponed or even prevented his illness.

Once his alcohol use disorder developed, he had access to very few affordable and effective treatment and recovery options.

I’m sure this sounds very familiar to those of you who are substance abuse specialists, as well as those of you who have experienced addiction in your families.

I share this tragic, painful, and preventable personal story with you to remind you that as substance abuse specialists, you should never think that what you do does not save and improve the lives of others. 

Your work saves lives! 

This truth should never leave you and in fact should be at the forefront of your mind every day.

What you do for youth, families, and communities is critical.

Our work in prevention can be difficult and frustrating, but I hope my brother’s story will remind you, as is does me, of your essential mission to protect and promote the health, wellbeing, and lives of vulnerable young people and adults in our communities.

Thank you so very much for all you do for others.

Let us know how we can support you and your life-saving mission to prevent substance use and substance use disorders by providing evidence-based strategies for all young people.    

That’s why I’m here and that is why Prevention Plus Wellness is here. 

Chudley Werch, PhD, CEO

Prevention Plus Wellness, LLC

The problem

Most substance use prevention and health programs are too lengthy or complicated to be provided to all youth, young adults and adults at-risk for substance use/misuse and other co-occurring health risks necessary to achieve true public health reach and impact. 

In addition, most individual prevention and health programs are too narrowly focused and don't address multiple health risks common among youth and adults, including substance use and misuse, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, inadequate sleep, and uncontrolled stress which together interact to negatively influence youth and adult physical and mental wellbeing.

Our solution

PPW provides evidence-based Screening and Brief Interventions (SBIs) that can be provided in one-45-minute session, along with other brief motivational strategies, for implementation in the busiest schools, organizations and communities. 

PPW programs cost-effectively  integrate multiple health risk behaviors within single interventions to protect and improve the mental and physical wellbeing, performance and happiness of youth, young adults and adults.

Using the Behavior-Image Model as a theoretical foundation, PPW programs  target desired future images associated with healthy lifestyle behaviors and employ multiple behavior goal setting to motivate and initiate behavior change, shape positive identities, and increase self-regulation skills and self-efficacy.  

Used in al 50 US states and abroad, PPW programs include easy-to-follow scripted program manuals with PowerPoint slides and built-in evaluation tools and can be provided to people individually or in a group, in-person or online.

Mission/Vision

Provide practical prevention tools for improving the physical and mental wellbeing of all youth and adults.

Tag lines

"Evidence-based prevention in one session!"

"Motivating youth to choose wellness and avoid drugs!"

For Youth: "Choose Wellness Over Drugs!"

Philanthropy

We provide free prevention programs to minority, women and veteran-owned small businesses serving youth and adults based on their financial need, as well as during give-away drawings to prevention organizations throughout the year..

We also offer free programs and training to selected organizations that partner with us to conduct a rigorous evaluation of a PPW program. 

In addition, we donate to various charities providing food and life-saving supplies for children and families, such as Feed the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and Catholic Charities, USA.

Contact us for more information: info@preventionpluswellness.com or call: (904) 472-5022.

Successes to Date 

• Providing practical, cost-effective prevention programs across all 50 US states and abroad,
• Training thousands of prevention and health professionals to provide and train others in using PPW programs in online and onsite workshops, and
• Providing evidence-based programs for prevention and health professionals and parents for nearly 15 years. 

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