SYNAR Training

Locations: Winston-Salem - May 22, 2019 & Raleigh - May 23, 2019

Materials from this training can be found at the bottom of this article.

Session Description

Over the past year, the State office has worked diligently to revamp its Synar program. As a result, new protocols and best practices have been developed to help stream line the process and reporting of Synar work. Prevention providers are essential to this process, as they communicate directly with tobacco retailers in the field, local law enforcement agencies, law makers, youth and parents.

Topics to be covered will include:

• Tobacco retailer violation data
• Synar allowable activities
• Merchant education best practices and protocols
• Reporting in ECCO and the Compliance Report template
• Synar effective policies to address youth access
• Overcoming retailer resistance
• Building and sustaining effective working relationships with law-enforcement agencies.
• Effective Retailer Education programming

At the completion of the training the attendee will be able to:

• Identify counties with high retailer violation rates
• List at least three allowable Synar activities North Carolina prevention providers can engage in.
• Demonstrate merchant education best practices and protocols to be used while conducting tobacco retailer education.
• Demonstrate how to enter merchant tracking information in ECCO and/or compliance report.
• Identify ways to support law enforcement agencies in their youth tobacco prevention efforts.
• List three components of an effective retailer education program.

Presenter

Nancy M. McGee, JD

Retired Special Agent Nancy McGee served for more than 29 years in the Missouri Department of Public Safety—Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. As a special agent stationed in the St. Louis District specializing in alcohol enforcement, McGee was responsible for enforcing Missouri’s Liquor Control Act. She was in charge of administering the state’s alcohol compliance check program as well as coordinating the department’s efforts on college campuses and with community coalition groups. McGee was also designated as the division’s liaison officer for local law enforcement agencies that received federal grants through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention—Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws (OJJDP/EUDL) Program.

McGee has also served as a consultant for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation since August 2002. In that capacity, she has developed course curriculums and provided technical assistance and training to agencies in support of alcohol and tobacco initiatives. She regularly provides training on the topics of developing and sustaining community coalitions; environmental management; working effectively with college communities; compliance check investigations; controlled party dispersal; shoulder tap operations; false identification; media advocacy; managing special events; social media; and working effectively with retailers.

In 2014 McGee was selected by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies as an FDA Tobacco Regulatory Science Fellow. McGee spent one year in residency at the FDA Center for Tobacco Products in Silver Spring, MD where she assisted the Center with issues concerning the implementation and enforcement of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA).

Throughout her career, McGee has been a featured speaker and panelist at numerous national conferences on underage drinking issues. She has given presentations at the OJJDP/National Leadership Conference, the Higher Education Center’s National Conference, the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators’ Midwest Regional Conference, and the Missouri Partners in Prevention “Meeting of the Minds” Conference.

McGee holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri–Columbia and a Juris Doctorate from St. Louis University School of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Missouri and Illinois.

Funding in whole or in part for this event was provided by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services with funding from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.