Tell Congress to Support Funding For Crime Victims
By
MADD
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June 14, 2013
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Filed in:
Victim Services
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Ask your lawmakers to co-sponsor H.R. 2238 and help victims of drunk driving get the support they deserve.
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MADD relies on Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funds to help serve drunk driving victims; last year, MADD served over 63,000 drunk and drugged driving victims at no charge—one person every eight minutes.
But in recent years we’ve seen the amount of funds available for crime victims diminish. State victim assistance grants are 30 percent less in real dollars than the grants in the year 2000, and according to Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), 630,000 fewer crime victims received VOCA-funded assistance in 2012 than in 2007.
Reps. Jim Costa and Ted Poe, co-chairs of the Congressional Crime Victims Caucus, just introduced H.R. 2238, which would exempt the Crime Victims Fund from sequestration, helping to preserve the amount of money available to fund victim services.
We need you to contact your members of congress now and ask them co-sponsor this important bill.
VOCA funding is critical to help us achieve our mission of serving victims of drunk driving, and we’re counting your support.
Take action now.
MADD Announces New Chairman and Members of National Board of Directors
By
MADD
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June 13, 2013
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Filed in:
General
We’re excited to announce the election of a new Chairman and four new members to MADD's National Board of Directors. Effective July 1, 2013, Bill Windsor will be Chairman of the Board, which will be comprised of 18 other members, including the four new additions.
Bill Windsor (Columbus, Ohio) has been Vice Chairman of the Board for the past two years, and prior to that spent two years as a member of the Board. He is currently Associate Vice President of Consumer Safety for Nationwide Insurance, working as an advocate for safety initiatives that help Nationwide members prevent losses and protect what matters most to them. Windsor has been in the insurance industry for 30 years, serving across a wide spectrum of functional roles in both the life and property/casualty industry.
In alphabetical order, following are the new Board members:
Robert “Skip” Carter (Temecula, Calif.) is a retired Deputy Commissioner for the California Highway Patrol who now serves as Public Traffic Safety Commissioner for the City of Temecula and as Education Coordinator for the Law Offices of O’Mara and Padilla. During his 30 years of work in law enforcement, Carter worked in a variety of roles, including road patrol, supervision and management for the largest state police/highway patrol organization in the nation.
Tara Kelley-Baker (Bowie, Md.) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), where she has developed, evaluated and directed numerous projects in the areas of drug and alcohol use/abuse prevention and traffic safety. She is especially interested in issues affecting youth and their development, including underage and young adult drinking and drug behavior. Dr. Kelley-Baker has done projects for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute on Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), among others.
Dana McCown (Papillion, Neb.) served 26 years in the U.S. Air Force, working in roles ranging from aircraft maintenance to logistics management, both domestically and abroad. She is the former Chairperson of MADD Nebraska’s State Operations Council, and has also led a state DUI task force. In addition, McCown participates in MADD Nebraska Victim Impact Panels, sharing with drunk driving offenders the lifelong impact of losing her parents in a 2007 drunk driving crash.
Ronald Medford (Santa Clara, Calif.) is Director of Safety for Google, Inc.’s self-driving car program, leading the team charged with ensuring the safety of the vehicle. Previously, he served as Deputy Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). He joined NHTSA in 2003 and was responsible for vehicle safety. Prior to NHTSA, Medford spent more than 25 years with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
For additional details about MADD’s leadership, visit madd.org/about-us/leadership.
New Data on Teen Emergency Room Visits
By
MADD
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June 13, 2013
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Filed in:
Power of Parents
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Underage Drinking
MADD talks about alcohol as the number one drug danger to teens, and new data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) back this up.
SAMHSA looked at all of the drug-related emergency room visits made by patients under the age of 21 – nearly 440,000 in all. Of those, over 43 percent involved underage drinking (over 188,000 visits), more than all other illicit drugs combined (a total of over 186,000 visits, with marijuana being the most prominent at over 120,000 ER visits).
This means that on average, every three minutes someone under the legal drinking age in the US has to go to the emergency room because they drank underage.
So, if you’ve had the talk with your teen about drugs, but not alcohol, now’s the time to have it. You can download our free Power of Parents handbook that gives you tips and tactics on how to have the conversation about alcohol in a meaningful and effective way.
