PA Winter Wellness Parent Speaker

Spivey Schenk Room, Buddy Temple Dining Hall
Contact: PA President
 
High Risk Behavior in Teens: What Parents Should Know
Crystal Collier

The average age of first use of alcohol for teen boys is 11 and 13 for teen girls. The average age of first exposure to pornography is 9. More teens are suffering from depression than any other time in our history. What is happening in our culture and to our children’s development? The Neuroscience of High-Risk Behavior teaches parents how substances and other high-risk behaviors such as alcohol/drugs, food addiction, and technology overuse affect healthy brain development and how to prevent children and adolescents from engaging in such risky behavior.
 
Crystal has been working with adolescents and adults suffering from mental illness, behavior disorders, and substance abuse since 1991 when she started out as a mental health technician while studying undergraduate psychology. She earned her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and her doctorate in Counselor Education at Sam Houston State University.  Crystal’s areas of expertise includes addiction, adolescent brain development, prevention programming, independent living skills training, parent coaching, and training new clinicians.

Crystal’s dissertation focus was the creation of a comprehensive prevention model to teach the neurodevelopmental effects of risky behavior to children, teens, and parents which was selected for the 2015 Prevention and Education Commendation from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. In addition, Crystal teaches counseling skills and addiction classes as an adjunct professor and was awarded the Torch Bearer of the Year award in 2018 by the Texas Association of Addiction Professionals.
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Address: 6500 St. Stephen's Dr., Austin, TX 78746
Phone: (512) 327-1213