Rikki Barton’s Background and Passion for Prevention

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White from Vive 18, and today we are chatting with Ricky Barton. And she has a passion for moving individuals and communities onward towards their goals. She’s the founder and lead consultant of Onward Consulting and holds the International Prevention Specialist Certification. She has nearly 16 years of prevention field experience and currently serves as a consultant to assist organizations, coalitions, and state federal agencies in the areas of substance use prevention, suicide prevention, and mental health promotion. In her free time, she enjoys climbing really big mountains and going on adventures with her rescue dog, Oreo. I love that intro, Ricky.

Thanks, Jake but the last sentence is the most important part. It’s right, and she’s over here on the side. She’s here with me. That’s right.

That’s right. Oreo. That’s what’s important. He’s taking a nap. She’s like, all right, you do your podcast thing. I’ll be here to make sure that you’re good.

Yes, she’s the supervisor of the operation, really. That’s right. Yes.

There you go, the onward consulting supervisor, Oreo. That’s so funny, you have her? That would be hilarious. Do you have her on your website?

I should have her on my website because she is in the intro slides of every presentation that I do. So you know what, Jake? I think that’s a great idea.

Yeah, she probably feels like bad that she’s not on the official page, you know?

Yeah, I think you’re right. think I’m hurting her feelings. It needs to happen.

That’s so funny. Well, let’s dive in Ricky. You’ve been doing prevention for 16 years. You have a, I didn’t know that you had an international certification. That’s pretty cool. Have you ever used your international status yet?

The Interconnection of Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicide Prevention

Yeah. I haven’t, but you know what, open for business. Yeah, right. mean, really. yeah, kind of internationally speaking, there’s one prevention certification that’s renowned and there’s reciprocity across states, and that’s the ICNRC certification. And so I’ve held that since 2010, and that’s just kind of one of those.

Yeah, you hear that listeners. Over for business levels in the prevention field really helps to professionalize our field. That’s one of the things I love to contribute to in our space in this primary prevention field is helping just elevate the professionalism of those of us working in the field to really make people say, there’s something to that. Like there’s not, it’s not just, you know, kind of an easy entry and then you move on. This is a career path and I love to promote that. So yeah, that certification kind of gives that credence to it.

I like that. That’s so cool. And from the 16 years that you’ve been in this, you mentioned a couple of things though, suicide prevention, mental health work, and substance use prevention. And I mean, I think we know they go hand in hand just because we’ve been told that, but how do you see those three working together and what’s kind of your, maybe if there’s something you’re working on now that you want to share ⁓ with, gets you excited, we’d love to hear about it.

Yeah, I mean really the field that I’m in I’m passionate about because I’m passionate about young people. I love to work with young people, hang out with them, train with them and really empower them to be the voices, the powerful voices that they are not just for the future but for today. that’s one of my passions is youth engagement and involvement and I know that’s yours as well so this concept of kind of how all of these different topics meld together like substance use and mental health and even some things about like online exploitation that kind of plays a role there in social media. That’s a project that I’ve been unpacking over the last couple years and has actually been a pretty you know high demand topic to come and speak and present to both to youth and adults because I think we all assume that there’s a connection.

But we haven’t necessarily made those connections or looked at research. And that’s what I’ve done is spent some time really digging into research. And so there’s multiple ways that those overlap. If you just take, for example, substance use and mental health, you might assume if you’re familiar with this field that, those who are struggling with mental health challenges might use substances to cope or to kind of numb feelings or to make them feel less anxious or become more social.

On the flip side of that, we also know there’s a direct connection between substance use and that actually leading to the onset of some mental health symptoms. Even something on some of those longitudinal studies showing that cannabis use heavy and consistent in adolescents can lead to the development of schizophrenia in the 20s. And so there’s kind of a two-way path there that those are connected. And I actually did some studies when it comes to this with Missouri student survey data where and so, wherever you are, I’m sure you could access some data to be able to look at this, but students who reported seriously considering suicide on these surveys in the past year, seriously considering suicide, they were three times more likely to use alcohol in the past 30 days, three times more likely to use marijuana in the past 30 days, and 12 times more likely to misuse prescription pain pills in the past 30 days compared to their counterparts who aren’t seriously considering suicide.

And to me, that is a stark statistic to say, hey, there’s a direct connection there between those who are feeling really mentally unwell considering suicide and then that likelihood to use substances, which we know of course reduces those inhibitions and kind of maybe allows more spontaneous behavior that might look like an attempt. Wow my gosh, that’s super interesting. And that was from some of the research done in Missouri.

Research Insights on Youth and Substance Use

Yeah, so that’s using the Missouri Student Survey data of like students who are reporting those things. And I kind of just worked with epidemiologists to get those numbers and and I figured there would be a connection again, like I said earlier, we all sort of assumed there would be. when the data shows it, that’s when I’m like, wow, like, people need to understand this connection so that they can then do something with that information. Like we know that they’re more susceptible to use.

So that then becomes a subpopulation that we really need to look at as those students who are struggling with mental health challenges. We need to be partnering with behavioral health providers who are working with students in a counseling type environment where we’re educating them on the signs of substance use and what that might look like if that’s becoming a problem in their life. And so lots to be said about that issue. And again, this drives me. We want you here. We want them alive. We want them healthy. We want them to thrive in the world that they’re in. And so if these are the things that are kind of weighing them down, that’s definitely an issue.

Right. No, that’s really important. And like you said, when we study a problem, it’s often to where do we put resources and how do we stay ahead of something bad happening? And then in prevention, it’s how do we create the systems beforehand to make sure that we’re helping students be resilient and knowing that we will face challenges, we will have this, or maybe your family struggles with mental health challenges like in the past and you just know that’s something that’s part of your, what is that, genealogy? It’s a $10 word, your genealogy. And then what are the other ways though that if we’re using these studies and we’re focusing on a population and I guess with like a broad paint brush since we know prevention, but if someone doesn’t know prevention is like why do we need these studies focusing on the group? Like, what do we do though? What do we do?

So and that’s really a topic that’s been brought up a lot over the national theme in prevention is these studies, these surveys, because a lot of people are pushing back against them. They don’t want their students to be surveyed or parents are worried about the content. But I just really can’t stress enough how valuable that information is because then we go and create or implement evidence based policies, practices policies, policies, practices and programs that like help to mitigate those things. You know, in prevention, we come in at the risk and protective factor level. So we know that we’ve got a problem. We know that we have youth who use alcohol, who vape THC or vape nicotine. We know that there are those issues, but we actually can’t in prevention just address underage drinking. Like there’s no way to just address that you’ve got to identify what the root causes are, which are those risk factors, whether that’s availability or low perception of harm, or my parents think it’s okay, or my peers are doing it. All of those are what we actually address in prevention. So we can’t really know what is happening in our specific community without understanding the data and those studies that help point us to those risk factors that then help us to make decisions about what programs to implement. So super vital that we’re doing these.

Yeah. And I think the, pinpoint is like, we’re not just studying that there is a problem. Everyone can see that there is a problem. We’re studying the why, the root cause, so that we can speak that language. And like you said, getting youth involved in creating the solution too, because they, they know what’s going on. They’re the ones filling out these surveys. They’re the one living in their own minds in this day and age. So, it’s, yeah, that’s really cool.

The Importance of Data in Prevention Strategies

Yeah, and you know what’s so interesting too, speaking of studies and this is something that is really emerging in our field is, well, it really emerging in the world is studying the impact of social media. It’s something that kind of hit our world out of nowhere. I mean, I was, I was one of this is gonna give my age, but I was one of the original Facebook members when it was just restricted to college campuses. Like that’s when it was back in the day, you had to have and educationbased.edu email in order to be to get on Facebook. And so like since then, you know, that was early 2000s, early to mid 2000s. And all of sudden we’ve progressed in the last 20 years to see where we’ve gotten to these days. It needs to be studied because what we already know is I’ll share some of the things that I already researched and found in some studies. And actually the US Surgeon General, the previous one did a big report on it and released a document that’s fantastic, along with the ⁓ Biden-Harris administration also put together a task force on the online impact for children and youth, specifically around exploitation and sextortion and things along those lines. But both of those have really great how to talk to your kids about this conversation starter pieces. But I digress. So those are great resources. But the research is starting to show that it’s having this impact on our mental health and substance use in a lot of ways too. So for example, with substance use, we know that social media is actually a major newer source of substances. Students will know the Snapchat account that will be the one that can get them their marijuana or get them their fake pills. We also know that they’re seen a lot. Columbia University did a study where they were able to unpack the idea that students just merely having a social media account made them more likely to buy cigarettes, more likely to drink, more likely to smoke marijuana, just having one. Not like following influencers who are known users or not, you know, seeking out content, just the mere fact that they had one. Coupled with the fact that we know that about 85 % of 13 and up have a social media account. And so, you you couple that together and you’re like, man, so that really is putting our students at higher risk just having one. And there’s a lot to be said about the why, but certainly just exposure to it. A lot of times if you do see those things online, like you might see someone having a party or being on a boat, you see the highlight of what that drinking looks like or that smoking looks like. You’re not seeing the consequences afterward. You’re not seeing the hangover. You’re not seeing the physical effects that might happen. You’re not seeing the missed therefore failing grades, you don’t see those parts. And so that creates a really big issue too, because they’re exposed to so much that glorifies it.

Yeah. And the way the algorithms work too is if you’re exposed to it once and you consume that content, they’re just going to feed you more of that content because they assume, oh, I saw your eyes. You watched this and you stopped scrolling. They’re measuring everything. And I can only imagine just knowing that this is a business operating these social media accounts. Their main profit is with advertisers everything. We know these companies are spending billions of dollars on advertising. Where is it going? It’s going through social media. So it’s like, yeah, how can we be on this platform and not feel the effects of that kind of stuff as well?

The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health

Right. And what’s interesting too, there’s a lot of recommendations from those documents that I mentioned. There’s a lot of recommendations that are put out to the industry in order to help curb some of the issues that we’re seeing with online space, especially for young people. And one of them is to ⁓ ban advertising to anyone 16 and under on social media platforms.

And, you know, it’s one of those catch-22s because in prevention, we also use social media as a way to get positive messages to young people. So it might hinder a little bit of that access that we have for those good messages to use, but it would also prevent a lot of the bad. And you say, Ricky, there’s no way that, you know, vape people are advertising directly to, you know, students on social media. Incorrect. They absolutely are with their colors, with their chosen the way that the actors look, all of that is a method of just getting at, mean, these, like you said, they’re brilliant people who make billions of dollars. So they study the brain, they study what works, how we track ourselves, how we think, and then they measure that. And that’s what’s so interesting too, you know, I talk, when I talk with students about social media, I explain to them, of course, the brain, right? You’re not fully developed yet, so you’re 25, and why that puts students at higher risk of becoming dependent on a substance. So I explain all of that and then I explain to them that our phones and those notifications are no different. They actually are studying the brain and seeing that those same process of that dopamine release when we get a notification and when we, you know, if we’re wearing a smartwatch, if we get a little, you vibration that that actually releases that dopamine that says, hey, I want that. There’s something good for me on my device. So you seek that.

And it creates this reward cycle that you desire, just like if you were to have, you know, how to drink or, or smoke that that would create that in your body. And I think a lot of students don’t realize that. And then once I’ve found that you explain that to them, they usually on, you know, kind of feedback, they’ll say, I’m going to spend less time on my phone. I’m going to choose to not turn, to turn off my notifications on certain things or to limit when I get them.

And I think that that’s powerful that youth are willing to, it’s almost like they get upset that they’re being targeted. It’s almost like they get upset that they’re being used or like, you know, this has been made to manipulate them. And so they, they really like to, to make a difference in their life. At least they claim that they’re going to. And so that’s really encouraging for sure.

Yeah. Well, I that you said that because we can pull out that prevention strategy and show it to everyone is like expose the tactics of marketers and advertisers because not just young people, none of us want to feel like we’re being manipulated, but these companies are hiring really high paid psychologists and researchers and people who know more about us than we do. And they’re using that information to sell us these addictive products. And that just, it should feel wrong.

The Need for Policy Changes in Social Media

It shouldn’t make you angry when you find out about that and how much they’re doing. It’s sick. It really is. And it really, I hope that it starts to drive. Cause when I speak to adults, they’re oftentimes like, yeah, how do we, how do we intervene? And, you know, I try to do, you know, no phone dinners with my family. I’m like, keep doing those things. But really some of this is going to have to come down to advocating for change on a bigger level. Like it’s just wild. When you think about the average age of a person who has a social media account is about 12 and a half years old it’s not legal for someone to have an account until they’re 13. So why are we at an average of 12 and a half? That means that so many students under the age of 12 have an account. so we’re already maybe failing the system a little bit as adults in allowing that thinking it’s harmless. And I know that several different companies have come out with like a youth specific messaging app or things like that.

And those are great. It’s safer and at least they’re able to communicate. But man, there’s just so much out there in the world that youth don’t need to see at the age that they are at. And there’s just so much on the internet. And it can create a big risk factor there of what they’re exposed to. And certainly that connects to mental health too. I know I mentioned there’s that connection. Research showing over and over again that social media use is related to higher feelings of depression, of loneliness of anxiety and that FOMO fear of missing out, which then can lead to this culture of comparison. Well, my life doesn’t look like that. So I feel really bad about my life, which is, said earlier, like we’re showing the highlights, we’re showing the good parts, but for a developing brain, it’s really very hard for them to comprehend that and to be able to like look at that from a kind of a very logical point of view.

And what’s also interesting is they’ve found that not only being on social media doesn’t increase the likelihood of depression and loneliness and anxiety, but the longer you spend on social media. So if I just check my phone real quick, 15 minutes, I’m on Instagram and I get off. Not that that’s innocent, but that’s compared to if I’m scrolling for an hour, 90 minutes, two hours, the longer I spend, the higher the levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and all of those negative mental health because it just starts to when I talk about it I talk about like that X feeling like you just start to feel like icky and That’s one of things I challenge people to do in my presentations and say like do a body scan every once in a while and think like as you’re on your phone How am I feeling right now? Like what’s my posture like am I hunched over? Am I kind of in a you know, a little cocoon, you know, how’s my mental space? How am I physically feeling and that will help you determine whether or not time like shut that iPad, close that phone, go outside. You know, we’re talking about touch grass, you know, like get out there because truly there’s something to be said about getting away from the screens. We weren’t designed to be looking at the screen six inches from our face. Like our eyes are strained, our bodies are strained. We weren’t built for that. And so now we’ve got this and we have to learn how to mitigate those things. Whether we are the ones, you know, to do it or laws are the ones to do it.

Someone shared the statistic with me. I don’t have a source for it. So I apologize, but I’m going to share it anyway. Someone told me recently that in China, where we know TikTok was created in China, they actually ban students 18 and under for longer than 45 minutes a day on TikTok. So students that are 18 can’t spend longer than 45 minutes. And interestingly also the content on TikTok in China is mostly educational compared to what we’ve got in over here, right? So there’s just these interesting things that like they’ve clearly got some policies around this. We kind of need to catch up and to really look at how we’re filling this space, what’s online, what’s allowed. And don’t get me started with AI, because that’s a whole other thing of like what’s out there and people just not even perceiving what’s real and what’s not. And that can create some confusion for a developing brain too. Like they don’t necessarily know if what they’re looking at is real authentic. They’re good at determining AI images, but just in terms of like filters and angles, even that affects well-being. I can, Jake, I can put a picture of myself online, one of those beauty filters where my eyelashes look perfect and my skin looks flawless and you know, I’m looking all fine. Well, some of them might think like, hey, Ricky looks really good today. Well, actually I had like, you know, no makeup on and I didn’t look. So it’s just sort of one those things where it confuses reality with this filtered life and that’s really bad for the developing brain too because they can’t necessarily distinguish that and that impacts how they feel.

Building Resilience in Youth

Yeah. And how they feel and what they sit with all day, like you had mentioned is, well, if I feel left out right now, what am I going to do to go feel included? If I feel like I’m not enough right now, what risky or unhealthy behaviors will I do to make myself feel like they look? And it is such a, like everything’s kind of connected.

And the more our culture goes towards these quick things like social media dopamine and substances, and we’re just conditioned for this, right? And I talk about it too with our presentations is like, if you want food, you can have it in 90 seconds because you pop it into a microwave. Or if you want something at your door, you have a one-day shipping option and you can have it today oftentimes. And so we’re not used to working hard for our benefits.

It’s kind of setting us up for challenges later in life, now and later in life. So having the discipline to say, and teaching the discipline to say, what do I want now? How can I get it safely so it sets me up to get what I want later too? And that’s the tough part because the brain’s not developed that way yet. So like we have to have extra reps and practice and thought into it with our young people and not just expect them to get it because we get it.

Right, right, exactly. And, you know, we, we never want to like discredit the knowledge of youth, but there are limitations to their understanding of life and the way that the world works. And so you’re, you’re exactly right. Like it’s our job as protective factors to help buffer those risk factors to be a mentor to young people, to infuse truth into them in a variety of ways, whether it’s through your presentations or things that I offer. It’s like we’re giving them knowledge so that then they can make informed decisions. But many times the feedback I’ll get after my presentation is I had no idea that fill in the blank any of the statistics that I shared. I mean, the average US adult is on social media like three hours a day is about the average. Now granted, I think that’s a little bit on the low side, because even when I get my notifications every week and I look at it, it’s usually a little bit higher. But youth, it’ much higher than that if you include like YouTube, they’re watching videos for three hours a day. They’re on social media for maybe three, three and a half. And so there’s just a lot of their time is spent on devices. A lot of their time is spent really trying to like see the world through the lens of their screens. And again, our job is to help kind of paint a bigger picture of what the world could be like and how we need to pursue that. And again, it we’re coming from a very limited perspective as adults too, because we only know what we grew up with. They have a whole future ahead of us that we can’t see yet. None of us can see. And we know technology will be a part of it. So our job is to build their character, build their resiliency skills, like you’re saying, like ways that I can say, you know what, I just saw this online, but that doesn’t affect who I am or who I think I am or how I see myself. Building those resilience, you know, kind of structure and skills and refusal skills to say no when offered because I know what I want for my future and it’s not this. That is really where prevention also comes into play. Sure, we try to address access to substances and all of that, but we’re also trying to give them those protections that kind of say, hey, this is the path to be on and encourage that.

Final Thoughts on Prevention Strategies

Yeah, that’s so cool. That’s why I really love learning about prevention too, is because learning about the different stakeholders and hey, as adults, what’s our role? Teaching, coaching, setting boundaries, sometimes advocacy systems. then at youth, what’s their role as far as peer-led programs and influence and building those skills and character and resilience?

It’s so fun as I get more and more into it and learning from people like you, Ricky, is it’s, I don’t know that we’ll never be done learning about this because just as our culture change, as people change, we all know that the drug landscape changes so fast, but that’s why it’s so important. We’re not focusing on one drug at a time. We’re focusing on prevention. The reasons why, because as humans, we can say that we change and we do things around us change, but our internal motivations and characters, like humans really haven’t changed that much, right? When I think about it, it’s the stuff around us that does, but we all want to feel loved and like we belong and like we matter and have a sense of purpose and our basic needs met. And when it comes down to prevention, that’s what that’s about, giving that to a young person. And Ricky, I want to pivot a little bit for our last couple minutes.

And maybe think of this as like a parting gift for our audience because you’ve been in the field for a long time. You’ve worked with lot of partners. If you could highlight maybe, and if you have to think for a second, that’s totally fine. If you could highlight three things, if professionals in prevention are listening to this, three things we should stop doing, or that maybe you’ve seen happening that’s, hey, this isn’t working or it’s not the best and then maybe a couple things we should start doing. What comes to your mind when I ask you that?

Parting Advice for Prevention Professionals

Great, great question. The instant thing about stopping that came to my mind was ⁓ making decisions that aren’t based on data. And this goes back to we talked about, the studies, the surveys, the information that’s out there. ⁓ You know, I talked a lot about my research around social media and mental health and substance use, but a lot of my job in the last 16 years has been working with community coalitions in their strategic planning and in the implementation of efforts. And what I’ve seen a lot is that coalitions are just doing what they do because they’ve always done it. Or they had the funding to do this one thing, but they do that instead of really looking at what the issues are. And so my stop would be stop doing things that aren’t driven by data because you’re really just spinning your wheels and wasting your resources when you do that.

I would say a second stop would be tokenizing youth and young people. That’s another huge passion area of mine that I could probably do a four hour podcast with you about. Because what I just see is, or what I hear is we need a youth at our table. And to me that’s like, wow, so you don’t understand yet. It’s great if you can get one youth, just really start the ball rolling. You gotta start somewhere.

But the mentality of that tokenism to say, we want this one youth to represent all of your peers in our community, it’s just a really dangerous place to be in because oftentimes it ends up being the straight-A kids or the kid that is over-involved in lot of activities and can’t contribute a lot. And they want to be involved because they care. Great, we want those students. Those are great students to have involved.

But I always also say, go get your C students, your D students, the students who have been caught with a vape on school campus and want to do something different. The students that maybe are a little bit on the fringe in that way, because we need their input as well in the work that we’re doing. And so we need everybody. And so getting as many youth involved and engaged, so that’s not being, tokenizing youth, really start to engage them. And so that would also lead to a start is start engaging young people in a really authentic way.

Not just we need, we’re gonna use you, we need you ⁓ in this way for these certain things. Youth are worth more than just setting out water bottles and standing up on stage next to you while you talk. Youth deserve the opportunity to be involved and engaged in what they’re doing and for their community and for their peers. And so really working with them and helping give them those opportunities.

That’s good, Ricky. That’s the perfect way to end. I’m so glad you’re in the field. And before we sign off, please tell people where they can go to find out about you and Onward Consulting, any of that stuff, and then we’ll say goodbye. Thanks Jake.

That sounds great. Yeah. So I’ve got a website onwardconsulting.biz, B-I-Z. And coming soon to that website will be a picture of the Oreo with an official title. Thanks to Jake’s great idea. But yeah, so, or, or email me at Ricky at onwardconsulting.biz. But I’m also on the socials. If you want to find me, speaking of social media, you want to find me on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, be happy to connect with you that way and work with you in whatever way possible.

That’s awesome. Thank you, Ricky.

Yeah, thank you, Jake for having me.

Of course. And for everyone listening, I hope that you felt encouraged. You got some new tips under your belt. Maybe you learned some new research that you can use. If something was helpful for you here, please pass it along to a friend or a colleague. If you love the episode and the show, please leave us a review. That’s a nice, easy way to say thank you. And then finally, just please stay in the field, keep doing the incredible work that you’re doing, and reach out whenever you need help. We’ll see you next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.