First 'Teen Maze' to help ninth graders, families understand teen issues

 

Media release: Nearly 300 community volunteers will be working together to make negotiating Floyd County's first-ever Teen Maze, a life-size interactive game,  a constructive learning experience for ninth-grade students from Rome High and all four Floyd County high schools  --  Armuchee, Coosa, Model and Pepperell.   

 

Students will be negotiating Teen Maze on Wednesday, October 17, and Thursday, October 18.  Parents and other adults are invited to preview the Teen Maze on Tuesday, October 16, from 6 PM to 8 PM at the Coosa Valley Fairgrounds. 

 

According to the Floyd County Teen Resource Center's Angie Robinson, "this is an opportunity for parents and other interested adults to negotiate the maze themselves, experience what the students will be experiencing and also obtain a lot of information about problems facing teens today."

 

Community volunteers will talk with students about the consequences of decisions related to drinking, drugs, impaired driving, dating violence and sexual activity, including sexual assault. 

 

Designed to help teens make healthier life decisions, the Teen Maze is constructed so teens may pick scenarios along different paths that lead them to various consequences which are acted out.  The goal is to reach graduation by avoiding negative consequences.  "They will actually get to see the consequences of decision making without being in a risky position," Robinson said.

 

Northwest Georgia Public Health and Family Connection (Rome-Floyd County Commission on Children & Youth) are the lead agencies sponsoring the Teen Maze, but "it's a community-sponsored event with broad-based support" said Family Connection's Carol Willis.

 

"The Teen Maze project grew out of planning by the Floyd County Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalition, which, along with numerous community volunteers, formed the Teen Maze Planning Committee. We received a $5,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to make the project a reality."

 

For more information about Teen Maze, contact Angie Robinson, Floyd County Teen Resource Center at 706-802-5828, or Carol Willis, Rome/Floyd County Commission on Children & Youth at 706-232-0703.