Accountability:

An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.

At YouImpact, accountability is the single greatest motivation for creating our online Victim Impact program.

Created by the late Anna Redgate, her inspiration behind the online program was to connect offenders to the consequences of their choices and actions. She herself was the victim of an accident involving a repeat drunk driver, taking the life of her infant daughter. Her vow to help stop this from happening to other families meant working to help offenders connect to the selfishness and impact of their singular choice; getting behind the wheel after drinking.

Making The Connection

Driving while impaired is a selfish act, a fact many offenders don’t initially understand. Offenders who are caught driving impaired often don’t consider their personal responsibility to keeping themselves and others safe. Nor do they think of how this seemingly harmless and personal choice has a long-lasting impact on others.

The act of unaccountability begins when an offender gets behind the wheel impaired. The connection to what happens to self or others is lost.

YouImpact’s online Victim Impact program tells the powerful stories of other offenders who lost that connection too, but have now taken responsibility for their actions and are “paying it forward”. They have taken accountability.

If caught and charged with a DUI, and offender’s accountability starts with the legal process. But many offenders still do not make the connection to their bad choice, especially if they were not involved in an accident or some other tragedy.

Power of Story

At YouImpact, we have developed a Victim Impact Panel program designed to reach the offender on a personal and powerful level, through real stories. We created our online program to connect the dots for those who do not understand the impact of their choice. This is key to reducing to recidivism.

Our program is stories of offenders and victims of drunk driving. In this way, the offender can relate to the poor choices they also made, and see the powerful impact of a choice, just like theirs, impacted innocent people.

The Real Difference of youimpact.com

Participants in the YouImpact online Victim Impact Panel must follow several steps to complete the program. Upon registering and paying, or using a given code, there is a required time frame in which they must complete the program.

A series of personal security questions follows, pre-written and designed to ask specific details of their life. For example, “What street did you grow up on?” and “What is the name of your favorite pet?”.

As offenders begin the program, they view 11 individual stories of both offenders and victims. At the close of each story, one or more of their personal security questions randomly appears. First, they must answer their security question, then they must complete a series of 5-7 questions directly related to the video segment they just watched.

It’s In The Details

The YouImpact questions are purposely selected to keep program participants accountable as they work through the online program. The offender must be watching to catch minute details and facts of the stories, but they are also watching those in the stories make the connection to accountability. The questions cannot be answered by searching online or having someone take the program for them. It’s interactive and specific and requires their participation. YouImpact makes them accountable for their participation.

Offenders must accurately answer the questions in each of the 11 sections of the 120-minute online program. And they must score 100% on all questions in order to advance to the next segment. A prompt will appear when they have answered a question incorrectly and they are given the opportunity to correct it.

By starting with these small steps of accountability, we ensure the offender is connecting to the stories and the content to the program. We want this powerful content and these personal stories to sink in and dissuade offenders from repeating the action. Reducing recidivism is the goal.

We’ve created the experience in our program to be more interactive and accountable than other programs. To complete the program, they must start with the most basic form of accountability.

A Letter To Their Future

At YouImpact, we believe in the power of “Big Picture” thinking for offenders. The moving and personal stories we tell of other victims and offenders is a powerful reminder of the choice they also made. It is a call to action for them to not repeat the behavior.

In this way, offenders are required to write a letter to their future selves in the YouImpact program. They must outline what they will do differently, what they see for themselves in six months and what they got out of the YouImact program experience. Program participants are now being asked to be accountable to themselves, both now and in the future, as they write these letters.

Once completed online, their letters are mailed back to offenders six months after completion, by YouImpact.

Through program participant testimonials and reviews, we know this exercise is poignant for offenders. They are often reflective, regretful and determined to never drive impaired again. They see themselves in these stories and they are moved by the power of their choice. Many even see getting “caught” or getting their DUI as a gift or a second chance to right their wrong. They now have a personal connection to their own accountability.

We’re Accountable To You

YouImpact generates a notification and a report to each county, caseworker or attorney once an offender completes a program. A monthly report is also provided outlining the participants in each county.

In this way, we are honoring the promise of our founder, to keep offenders accountable to those in the legal system.

We’re All In This Fight

The varying levels of accountability in the YouImpact program are an effective and necessary tool for reducing recidivism. It’s why YouImpact came to exist, from the pain and power of a senseless tragedy. We want to partner with the legal system, courts and county’s fight in this battle and make real change in reducing repeat offenders.

Accountability is the key to making real change. YouImpact has designed an easy-to-use, 24/7 accessible program that can be used anytime and is available to counties all over the country.

Start today to help educate offenders on the power of making change and being accountable. Start by using YouImpact.com

YouImpact founder and developer Anna Van Zee Redgate passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in April of this year.

A mother of three children and a beacon of light for positivity and change in her community, she left a legacy of hope and an unwavering commitment to making a difference.

YouImpact was deeply personal for Anna. She and two of her children were hit by a repeat-offender drunk driver in Palm Beach County on New Year’s Day in 2000. Her 9-month old baby daughter Grace was killed in the tragedy.

After her own horrific experience, Anna made the decision to use her painful journey to help other people and to impact social change and issues around impaired driving.

She spearheaded efforts to implement pedestrian safety measures on the Blue Heron Bridge in Palm Beach County and worked on legislation for public safety. She was tireless in her effort to make real change regarding drunk driving and educating people on the “ripple effect” of their choices on others.

She volunteered on countless Victim Impact Panels around the state of Florida.

It was her work with live Victim Impact Panels where she witnessed firsthand the many discrepancies in the process and helped to create national “best practice” guidelines for live panels.

This work with VIPs was also the impetus for Anna to create the online YouImpact program, integrating those same “best practices” and delivering a powerful and effective message about accountability and making real change through better choices.

The YouImpact online program is one-of-a-kind with accessibility anywhere in the world for offenders. It was Anna’s hope to make real change in connecting with DUI offenders and convicted impaired drivers. The intent of YouImpact’s program was to widen the audience and reach more people to provoke true change. At the heart of her work was the belief that she could help stop another senseless tragedy.

“YouImpact and Anna’s mission is more important now than ever,” says Robin Lis of YouImpact. “We will move forward with that same heart and commitment to making positive change and reaching more people with YouImpact.”

Please visit our home page for more information about our program.

The precepts of a healthy criminal justice system dictate punishment for offenders and recompense for victims. In an idealized society, those tenets rectify the wrongs done by offenders and set aright the course of proper civilized behavior. And this applies particularly to impaired driving offenses.

However, reality – and the existential human struggle to correct an imperfect judiciary system – delivers an ugly indictment of a process riddled with tragic flaws: too many offenders returning to their offenses as victims’ suffering continues unabated.

While percentages have declined in the last few decades, recidivism rates remain unacceptably high, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In examining studies of recidivism for impaired driving, the agency concluded that rates have dropped in the last 20 years from 31 percent to 25 percent – the “rosy” side of a very dark nightmare.

More Than Half of Offenders Get Back Behind the Wheel

Those numbers direct us to a difficult truth: One in four convicted impaired-driving offenders get back behind the wheel. Mothers Against Drunk Driving paint an even bleaker picture: 50-70 percent of convicted offenders continue driving on suspended licenses (which were penalties ascribed for driving while impaired).

The downward spiral seems to grow steeper. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, three people are killed every two hours from impaired-driving highway crashes. The department cited an estimated 4 million adults in the United States drove while impaired, leading to nearly 112 million impaired-driving incidents in 2010.

More than 13,000 people died in impaired-driving crashes that year, according to the USDOT, causing an estimated $37 billion in damages.

Highway Deaths on the Rise

Government statistics released this summer show a rise in highway fatalities. In July the USDOT’s Traffic Safety Administration showed a 7.7 percent increase in vehicle crash deaths. While analysts haven’t determined the exact cause for the rise (to 35,200 deaths), officials point to busier highways from lower gas prices and bad driving habits.

“As the economy has improved and gas prices have fallen, more Americans are driving more miles,” said NHTSA Administrator Dr. Mark Rosekind.

“But that only explains part of the increase. Ninety-four percent of crashes can be tied back to a human choice or error, so we know we need to focus our efforts on improving human behavior while promoting vehicle technology that not only protects people in crashes but helps prevent crashes in the first place.”

YouImpact Goes To The Heart

Stubborn recidivism rates and traffic conditions may fluctuate; engineers may develop new vehicle-safety technologies; and legislators may enact tough laws. However, addressing this problem seriously and comprehensively involves getting to the root. Reducing recidivism rates significantly requires going to the heart of the impaired driving offense, which is why YouImpact is so successful.

YouImpact takes offenders on an uncomfortable journey by compelling them to view – up close and personal – the consequences of their actions.

In our program, offenders are required to take an online course as part of their rehabilitation where they watch videos and listen to stories of victims and defendants. The course leads participants through sometimes heart-wrenching accounts of the suffering victims undergo and the price victims pay.

In a sense, YouImpact makes offenders eyewitnesses to the destruction their actions brought to victims, to families and to entire communities. History teaches that the telling of stories – especially those that touch the human heart – are the most powerful tools of learning and of assuming personal responsibility for individual behavior.

Time spent behind cold, steel bars in a jail cell, frequent visits to probation officers and high legal and punitive costs may serve as a deterrent at some level, as the statistics reflect, but only to a point. Viewing personal accounts of the wretched human cost – the deep pain and the ringing agony – takes offenders to a new and profound level of personal accountability.

YouImpact works because it touches the offender rather than the offense. Statistics validate the benefits of programs like YouImpact. Such online programs reduce recidivism by 35 percent.

Here at YouImpact, we are using this section to share news related to distracted and impaired driving and related issues, like today’s article. If you have questions about this article or about our successful online program, contact us today.

You’ve likely heard about victim impact panels or witnessed them on television or in movies. Often a person is required to take part in such a panel because they’ve been arrested and charged with impaired driving or other offenses. Attending a victim impact panel is part of their sentence.

Upon arrival, they meet others like themselves who are required to attend for similar reasons. As the panel discussion begins, victims of impaired driving or the relatives of victims speak out about their experiences and how their lives have been impacted. They speak of the loss of loved ones and debilitating physical and emotional injuries.

The goal is to get the participants to understand the full scope of what they’ve done and how their actions have impacted others. Hearing directly from these victims will hopefully have a lasting impact on the participants, helping to prevent them from repeating these actions.

Why Victim Impact Panels Fail

While victim impact panels seem like a good idea, they are not always successful or effective. Those attending are just required to be present and listen. No other participation is required. This means attendees can just zone out rather than pay attention to what is being said. Once the panel speakers are done, they’re done.

Also the victims who speak out during these panels are real people who have been hurt and impacted due to poor decisions made by others. They are not professional speakers so often many will wander off topic as they speak and lose the interest of attendees.

Engagement On A Personal Level

YouImpact’s online program is based on a victim impact panel, but that is where the comparison ends.

The YouImpact program is designed to confront defendants with the consequences of driving impaired through a series of videos featuring guided, personal stories from 15 subjects, both victims and offenders. Each person in these videos speaks in detail about how their lives were impacted by destructive driving decisions.

This online course requires engagement on a personal level. In addition to watching each of these videos, participants are also required to take an online test after each video.

The tests ask questions about the content of the video, but also offer questions meant to make the defendants process the stories they have heard and relate them to their destructive behavior. Each test must be passed with a score of 100 percent within five days of enrollment in order to complete the course successfully.

This type of participant engagement is what makes the YouImpact program so unique and effective. It’s also why this program is so popular with judges and the legal system. Another reason for its growing use is that it puts the burden of cost on the defendants rather than the court system. Each person required to take this online course must pay for it themselves.

Defendants can take the course at anytime and from any laptop, computer, tablet or smartphone that has access to the Internet.

YouImpact Inspires Positive Change

The personal and individual nature of the YouImpact online program allows participants to feel the impact of the stories being told. In fact, more than 72 percent of those who have completed this course say the program inspired them to make positive changes in their lives.

What do you think about this article? Please comment below. And if you’d like more information about the YouImpact program, contact us today.

A new Textalyzer device, proposed by the state of New York, is the latest weapon being put forward in the fight against distracted driving.

Much like the breathalyzer, the Textalyzer would enable law enforcement personnel to check the cell phones of drivers involved in accidents. A bill proposing the Textalyzer is currently moving through the New York State Legislature.

Here at YouImpact, which offers an online course built on the concept of victim impact panels, we applaud legislation like this aimed at changing people’s behavior and attitudes on distracted driving and impaired driving. YouImpact has served as a catalyst for behavioral change for those who have completed our online program.

Here’s how the Textalyzer would work: An officer arriving at the scene of a vehicle crash could ask for the phones of the drivers involved. Then the Textalyzer would be used to tap into the operating system of each cell phone to determine recent activity.

Textalyzer would determine if driver used the phone

The digital device would be able to determine if the driver had used the phone to text, email or do anything else that is considered illegal under New York’s hands-free driving laws, which prohibits drivers from holding phones to their ears. Those who refuse to hand over their phones could face suspension of their driver’s license.

While some have already expressed privacy concerns, officials say the device would not give officers access to the contents of a phone’s texts or emails. It would just show the activity.

Proponents of the bill say there is a need for such a law that can help change people’s behavior. If it becomes law, more drivers will be afraid to put their hands on their phones, they say. And it could lead to more states adopting a similar law, spreading in the same way New York’s hands-free law did. Listen to this report from NPR featuring the father who came up with the Textalyzer idea.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 3,179 people killed and an additional 431,000 injured in 2014 in collisions involving distracted drivers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. And at any given time during the day in 2014, more than 587,000 vehicles were being driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone.

Here at YouImpact, we want to use our blog to share news related to impaired and distracted driving and related issues, like today’s article. If you have questions about this article or about our successful online program, contact us today.