Watch UR BAC team wins Superior Service Award from AgriLife Extension
BRYAN — The Watch UR BAC Project Team has received a Superior Service Award in the team category from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
The Watch UR BAC program is a statewide effort to increase youth awareness of the dangers of impaired driving and to inspire young people, especially those at risk, not to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Superior Service Awards recognize AgriLife Extension faculty and staff members who provide outstanding performance in Extension education or other outstanding service to the agency and to Texans. The award was presented Jan. 12 during the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Conference awards dinner at the Brazos Expo Center in Bryan.
The AgriLife Extension team includes Bobbi Brooks, program manager; Laura Dean Mooney, program coordinator; Janet Sandera, program coordinator; Tanner Kilpatrick, program assistant; and Bev Kellner, safety specialist and principal investigator for the project grant. Additional team members were Sean Carter and Jenny Carter of WhenSeanSpeaks, Inc.
“Team members are devoted to the program and have decades of combined experience in drunk driving prevention and alcohol awareness education,” wrote Lauralea Bauer, program manager with the Texas Department of Transportation in her letter of support for the team’s award nomination. “They are constantly expanding their knowledge base and growing the program by seeking new and innovative trainings that they use to enhance the hundreds of programs they conduct annually.”
According to the award nomination, the Watch UR BAC Project was established in 2012 through a grant from the Texas Department of Transportation. The project conducts programming statewide to reach audiences, especially at-risk youth, and educate them on the dangers of impaired driving. To simulate driving while intoxicated, simulators are used to demonstrate the effect of alcohol or other drugs on driving skills. Drivers experience simulated obstacles and hazards, and special goggles worn by the person in the simulator duplicate impaired vision.
The team’s programming has received national attention and team members have presented at prestigious conferences on alcohol and drug awareness education, including the Institute of Police Technology and Management Symposium on Alcohol and Drug Enforcement. Watch UR BAC was also recognized as a Highway Safety Best Practice Project by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Governor’s Highway Traffic Safety Office.
Since 2012, the Watch UR BAC program has conducted or supported a total of 681 programs statewide, reaching more than 106,000 people, the nomination stated. The team also has partnered with WhenSeanSpeaks and the Amber Menefee Mobile Memorial, organizations with victim/survivor speakers who encourage behavior changes that will reduce instances of underage drinking and impaired driving.
The team also developed the Screening and Brief Intervention tool to help health professionals identify those at risk for alcohol and substance abuse. They also provide Ignition Interlock demonstrations to adult audiences to help explain how they work and the benefits of keeping impaired drivers off the road.
In 2012 the Watch UR BAC team established a DWI Law Enforcement Advisory Committee which meets bimonthly to help maximize resources to keep impaired drivers off the road. This group is made up of law enforcement and representatives from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, TxDOT, the Brazos County Attorney’s office and AgriLife Extension. A media event was organized to help inform the Brazos Valley to designate a sober driver, especially during ChiliFest, a local two-day music event where alcohol is consumed and increased enforcement is needed. and in 2014 and 2015, the Watch UR BAC Project teamed up with TxDOT and the Sherry Matthews advertising agency to do a seven-city impaired driving education campaign.
According the award nomination, the Watch UR BAC Project Team has expanded AgriLife Extension’s capacity to educate youth, parents and teachers about the perils of impaired driving. As a result, it has prevented many needless crashes, injuries and deaths, and has brought recognition to the agency and demonstrated the importance of innovative safety education.