As director of alcohol and other drug services at Harvard University, Ryan Travia sees himself as a community organizer.

On Wednesday, he is coming to speak with parents in the Vineyard community, where in June, tragically and not for the first time, teen drinking fueled a fatal car crash.

His presentation is Alcohol 101, in which he reports on current trends in young adult alcohol use, based on research findings from AlcoholEDU, an online program used at colleges and universities nationwide.

He also plans to explain the physiology of alcohol on young people, Mr. Travia said in a recent interview with the Gazette.

The talk begins at 11:45 a.m. at the Point Way Inn in Edgartown. It is free of charge, though seating reservations are required.

He will discuss what parents should expect when they send their children away to school, and familiarize parents with medical amnesty and good Samaritan policies typical at most universities. These policies allow friends of an endangered individual to bring them in for medical care without fear of reproach.

Parents will also hear how to detect warning signs of teen problems with alcohol and drugs.

His program is one in a diverse series for parents called Arts a la Carte, organized by Island arts educator Lani Carney. Her work aims to strengthen relationships between parents and children, the bond she see as the elemental building block of the community.

“I was really interested in doing the Arts a la Carte program to bring mothers and fathers together ... so that we can continue to discover ways to understand our children,” Miss Carney said of the program’s mission.

She ensures that each Arts a la Carte presentation concludes with plenty of time for dialogue with the visiting expert.

Miss Carney invited Mr. Travia after seeing a need for the community generally and some of her adolescent students in particular to discuss the effects of alcohol here: “Some [of my students] are tweens, at a place in their development where they’re trying to reconcile their roles as children and young adults.”

In this field of adolescent development, where scare tactics often take supremacy over honest and open discussion, Miss Carney and Mr. Travia are aiming to restructure the dialogue about drinking.

“It isn’t particularly a sexy topic,” Mr. Travia said of getting people to discuss drinking.

“There’s a lot of denial,” he said, suggesting the Vineyard may be comparable to selective schools in that way. “They know they’re high risk, but it doesn’t motivate behavioral change.”

Mr. Travia takes a “harm reduction approach” to alcohol education, which he describes as interactive and experimental.

He suggests that before talking to children about alcohol, adults should examine their own relationship with the substance. They should reflect on how they’re interacting with other adults and friends when they’re drinking or hosting drinking individuals.

He points to parents who allow their own friends to drive home after they’ve been drinking, a frequent occurrence which has dangerous implications for young observers.

Young people will get most of their information about drinking from observation and nonverbal communication, Mr. Travia said.

He advocates parental involvement, stressing that one-on-one communication will be more effective than school programming. Parents should have clear rules and expectations, he said, and enforce consequences when those rules are broken.

His alcohol education work is, he said, about empowerment. He takes the pressure off of parents, saying that there’s no need to be preaching. “It’s all about choices.”

Miss Carney conveyed similar hopes for the children and parents she works with: “It’s really important to empower children.”

Mr. Travia and Miss Carney said they hope Wednesday’s discussion will filter out to parents not in attendance and throughout the community.