Answer Addiction

Tag: drug education

  • Schools In Philly’s “Opioid Zone” Help Kids Process Grim Reality Of Addiction

    Schools In Philly’s “Opioid Zone” Help Kids Process Grim Reality Of Addiction

    The goal is to teach students in the notorious area coping techniques so their focus can return to school. 

    Educators in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood play a larger role than they signed up for—they provide support to kids exposed to the grim reality of drug abuse daily, in a neighborhood notorious for its visible drug problem.

    Charlotte Maddox, principal of Lewis Elkin Elementary School, showed WHYY reporter, Joel Wolfram, images of what the school has to deal with on a daily basis.

    “Used syringes in a jar. A man sprawled unconscious on the playground. The shattered window of a teacher’s car, which had been hit by a stray bullet,” Wolfram observed.

    Discussing Their Surroundings

    At the beginning of each day, students are encouraged to share what’s bothering them. By getting it off their chest, the goal is to get them back to focusing on school and processing whatever was on their mind.

    “They’re kind of focused on that in their minds. So when it comes time to read, it’s hard for them to look at the words on the page and read because they’re more worried about what happened at home last night, what happened outside their house, what happened on the way to school that morning,” said Chelsea Trainor, a third-grade teacher at Elkin.

    Another school in Kensington, Memphis Street Academy, teaches kids in grades 5-8 coping techniques like deep breathing and yoga.

    Processing Trauma 

    Wolfram illustrates the horrors that these kids come face-to-face with every day—“family members dying of overdoses, screams outside at night that made it impossible to sleep, drug dealers soliciting them on the street, and accidentally stumbling into someone who was injecting drugs in public.”

    By acknowledging what they are going through, the goal is to help process the trauma as it’s happening, so it doesn’t worsen with age. “At the root of all of that is not knowing how to cope with emotions and having to deal with pretty big emotions at a pretty young age,” said Brittany Buchanan, a fifth-grade counselor at the Academy.

    “With all of this that’s happening on the outside of the building, we need to be beacons of hope on the inside of the building,” said Maddox.

    Philadelphia is the expected site of the nation’s first overdose prevention centers, after a recent victory in court by Safehouse, the local organization that proposed the sites.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Drug Policy Alliance Creates Harm Reduction-Based Guide For Drug Education

    Drug Policy Alliance Creates Harm Reduction-Based Guide For Drug Education

    The new drug education curriculum is based on harm reduction principles and is available for free to high school teachers.

    Teachers now have access to a harm reduction-based guide to teaching kids about drugs.

    The Drug Policy Alliance created a new drug education curriculum for high school teachers—available online for free download—that doesn’t rely on demonizing drugs and alcohol. Instead, the curriculum is based on harm reduction principles—an alternative to abstinence-only drug education programs like the original version of D.A.R.E.

    The DPA, a non-profit organization that promotes drug policy reform, explained the difference: “For example, abstinence-only education may tell young people that they should refrain from using drugs because they could overdose. Harm reduction drug education explains how to recognize the signs of drug overdose, how to respond and how to get help if they fear that a friend is overdosing.”

    Safety First: Real Drug Education For Teens

    The package of 15 lesson plans (PowerPoint slides included)—titled Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens—goes over material that is familiar to traditional drug education curricula like Alcohol & Other Depressants, Vaping & E-Cigarettes and Cannabis.

    But other lessons, like Mental Health and Coping and Health & Policy, feel new to generations who were raised on D.A.R.E.

    Sasha Simon, Safety First program manager for the DPA, told Benzinga that the organization saw the need for a comprehensive, alternative drug education program.

    “Safety First was created in response to a lack of accurate, science-based and compassionate drug resources in schools,” she said. “With nearly 70,000 people dying of accidental overdose last year alone, it is essential that our young people develop the necessary skills to navigate their risks. Not only will it protect them while in school, but will serve as a foundation for them to foster healthy attitudes and habits around drugs that they will carry with them throughout their lives.”

    Testing the Curriculum on Students

    The Safety First curriculum was piloted in New York City and San Francisco, and produced positive results, DPA said.

    They observed in the much larger San Francisco trial, where over 600 students were taught the curriculum, that students demonstrated increased knowledge of harm reduction, drugs and alcohol, and how to detect and respond to a drug-related overdose.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Improbable Players Use Theater To Teach Kids About Addiction, Recovery

    Improbable Players Use Theater To Teach Kids About Addiction, Recovery

    The Massachusetts-based group has brought their message to more than one million students.

    For the past three decades, a dedicated group of professional actors, all of whom are in recovery from dependency issues, have made it their goal to provide “prevention education” about all forms of addiction and recovery to the public through dramatic performances and theater workshops.

    In doing so, the Massachusetts-based Improbable Players – which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year with a gala and fundraising event – has brought their message to more than one million students in New England, the Northeast United States and Ohio.

    Photo credit: Ally Rzesa

    They’ve also supported more than 200 individuals in recovery by giving them a unique forum to share their experiences.

    The Founder

    Founded in 1984 by actor and educator Lynn Bratley whose own experiences with alcoholism and sobriety formed the basis for the Players’ first show, the company soon became a “foundational program,” as executive director Andy Short tells The Fix. “It took actors in recovery and created plays from true stories,” he said. “Often, these were stories from the actors who were part of the playmaking process. We brought that to schools as a 45-minute show.”

    Photo credit: Ally Rzesa

    The Players perform for school audiences starting at the sixth grade level; of the 118 shows they put on in 2018, Short says that 105 were for schools, with the remainder at conferences, treatment centers and community events, all in the New England area, as well as New York, New Jersey and Cleveland, Ohio.

    Each show is followed by a Q&A session with the performers. The focus is, as Short says, “agnostic, to use a 12-step term. We show people in treatment and seeking help from peers, relatives and professionals, but we don’t get very specific [about forms of treatment] within the play itself.”

    For audiences, the Improbable Players offers an honest and unfiltered look at addiction and recovery that’s drawn from real-life experience. We have two things going for us,” says Short.

    “Right off the bat, we say that we have this problem, and that wakes them up a little bit. The other thing is that we don’t preach – we show addiction and recovery as it could happen – and just because someone doesn’t have an addiction, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t benefit from seeing it, because you could think, ‘Oh, this could help my friends.’ And at the end of every show, we say, “Who here knows someone who might have a problem?” We get 80% of hands going up in middle school.

    For the actors, the shows are a chance to share what they’ve learned, and in the process, gain support for their own recovery. For Short, who joined after three years in recovery, that feedback proved invaluable. “I was working at Starbucks and having a tough time – really depressed,” he recalls. 

    Shared Experiences

    “My first show, this girl came up to me and asked how she could talk to her brother – they weren’t talking and he had just dropped out of school because of addiction,” he says. “I had a conversation and hooked her up with counselors at the school. For me, I felt, ‘I can be really useful with my experience here.’ That was really important for my recovery, and other people have had the same experience.”

    On October 28, 2019, the Improbable Players will celebrate their 35th anniversary with a fundraising gala and performances at the Lyric Stage Company in Boston, Massachusetts. It’s a chance for the group to honor its work and to support its performers, as well as introduce audiences and potential supporters to their mission of prevention education. Space is limited, so for individuals and businesses who may want more information on the Improbable Players, they can find information on the company and its gala at improbableplayers.org.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • French Montana Says He Could Have Saved Mac Miller From Addiction

    French Montana Says He Could Have Saved Mac Miller From Addiction

    “If I was around him a couple more nights, I would have made him stop … but he didn’t have nobody that was doing that.”

    Hip hop artist French Montana said that he could have stopped rapper Mac Miller’s overdose death by talking to his friend about the way that his drug use was getting out of control. 

    Speaking on BET’s Raq Rants, Montana said that Miller “was doing the same thing every other artist was doing out there.”

    He suggested that if Miller had someone to give him a reality check — or some tough love — the outcome might have been different. 

    “If you’ve seen the video that me and him did, I’m like, ‘Yo, bro, you’re overdoing it.’ But that was him way before,” he said. “Sometimes if people don’t have people that keep them grounded, it can go left. I just feel like they let him get away with whatever he chooses to do.”

    Montana went so far as to say that he could have stopped Miller from abusing drugs and alcohol. 

    “I feel like I have people that, if I do something like that, how I was to him like a big brother, like, ‘Bro, you’re bugging out.’ … He ain’t have that around him,” Montana said. “Because if I did it that night, if I was around him a couple more nights, I would have made him stop … but he didn’t have nobody that was doing that.”

    While Montana might want to believe that he could have helped his friend, anyone with up close experience with addiction knows that facilitating recovery isn’t as easy as just telling someone to snap out of it. 

    “Substances are incredibly powerful and rewarding,” Kevin Gilliland, a clinical psychologist and executive director of Innovation360 Dallas, told Yahoo Lifestyle. “It’s not as simple as someone saying, ‘You need to stop.’”

    Gilliland said that Montana is hinting at some important ways to help people who are dealing with addiction — including keeping them grounded. 

    “That is often a hugely important piece of helping someone fight addiction, it doesn’t always work,” Gilliland said. “One of the most powerful things I’ve seen for someone getting help for an addiction is having meaningful, significant relationships.” 

    Talking to someone about their substance abuse and letting them know that you are concerned is a good idea, he added. However, friends and family members have to realize that this doesn’t always work, and that it could make their loved one angry. 

    “They will get angry and defensive, but you have to talk to them,” Gilliland said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Killing Pain" Docu-Series Spotlights Oklahoma's Opioid Crisis

    "Killing Pain" Docu-Series Spotlights Oklahoma's Opioid Crisis

    Oklahoma’s Attorney General, who is interviewed for Killing Pain, lauded its coverage of the “many tragic aspects” of the state’s opioid crisis.

    A new seven-part documentary focuses on the impact of the opioid crisis on Oklahomans.

    Killing Pain, which is free to watch online, is a multi-faceted exploration of the opioid crisis, from the perspective of Oklahomans.

    The seven-part series was produced by the Oklahoma City-based non-profit organization Fighting Addiction Through Education (FATE). The docu-series is just another arm of founder Reggie Whitten’s fight to spread awareness about the risks of opioid drugs.

    Whitten has been doing this for 16 years, since the death of his son Brandon. Brandon’s addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs led to his death in 2002 at the age of 25.

    “That’s when a part of me died and my life changed forever,” said Reggie Whitten. “I really don’t even remember who I used to be. It’s hard to believe the power of this little molecule called an opioid.”

    Whitten travels to Oklahoma communities to tell Brandon’s story and speak about the opioid crisis. “You can’t fight an enemy until you know everything there is to know about it and I’ve spent the last 16 years obsessively learning about the enemy,” said Whitten. “Addiction is a very difficult adversary.”

    Whitten noted that opioid-based prescription drugs are important for some, but that education about the risks is just as important. “For every one person that dies, we have tens of thousands who are living a life of misery,” said Whitten. “They’re highly addicted to this… drug.”

    FATE also offers various programs designed for specific audiences such as the Life of an Athlete program, Native Fate (designed for Native American communities), elementary schoolers, college students, working professionals, and everyone in between.

    Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunger, who is interviewed for Killing Pain, lauded the documentary’s coverage of the “many tragic aspects” of Oklahoma’s opioid crisis.

    “Although the reality of the story is painful, the good news is, Oklahoma is rising to meet this challenge,” said Hunger, according to News 4. “State officials, business leaders and community organizers are tired of watching our families suffer and are stepping up and doing something about it.”

    The entire Killing Pain series is available to watch for free on YouTube.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How US Public Schools Are Taking Action Against The Opioid Crisis

    How US Public Schools Are Taking Action Against The Opioid Crisis

    From drug searches to peer-support groups, schools across the nation are taking a number of approaches to combat the opioid epidemic.

    Some high schools aren’t wasting time and are confronting the opioid crisis head-on. 

    According to CBS 6 News, Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, New York is one such school. At the high school, drug searches with police K-9s take place about twice per month, says Saratoga County Deputy Sheriff Ken Cooper, who serves as the school resource and emergency liaison officer.

    “Kids start out with marijuana use, they don’t think that the next thing is heroin or another drug, but it is,” Cooper told CBS. 

    During the searches, trained K-9s locate any illegal items in a student’s locker. If the dog finds something, it scratches at a locker or barks. According to Cooper, students have reacted mostly positively to the searches. 

    “I think overall students, parents are OK with us coming in and searching. They don’t want drugs on campus,” he tells CBS. 

    Another step being taken at the high school is stationing school resource officers throughout, with the hope that students will feel comfortable talking to them if they have friends who may be using drugs. 

    “We want them to give us the good information, so we can actually help,” Cooper told CBS. 

    Additionally, CBS reports, the school has trained teachers, school nurses and other staff members about the signs of substance use disorders. The school also advertises a help hotline and students are even learning about opioids in their health classes. 

    Shenendehowa High School isn’t alone in taking an early approach to the crisis. 

    In Lakewood, Ohio, a peer-to-peer approach is being taken. High school students have partnered with a nonprofit called Recovery Resources of Cleveland and have created the Casey’s Kids program, according to Cleveland.com. In the program, high schoolers chosen by health teachers and counselors work to educate middle school students about substance use disorders. 

    “There’s a lot of research that says kids sort of have better outcomes in this program when it’s delivered by other kids. They’re more apt to listen and trust information that’s delivered by other kids,” said Lakewood City Schools’ Teaching and Learning Director Christine Palumbo. 

    Some states are even passing laws requiring schools to educate students about the opioid crisis, according to Education World.  

    In 2014, New York passed a law requiring schools to update their health curriculums to teach students about the opioid crisis.

    Recently, Maryland followed suit and passed the Start Talking Maryland Act, which mandates that public schools educate students about the dangers of opioid use, beginning in the third grade. The bill also mandates that nursing staff be trained to administer the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone. 

    “It’s a crisis that we need to identify and make educators as well as parents aware of it, and provide the resources to deal with it,” Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D), the bill’s lead sponsor, told The Baltimore Sun.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • A Modern Approach To Drug Education

    A Modern Approach To Drug Education

    A California-based nonprofit’s modern approach to drug and alcohol education is garnering positive feedback from students and parents alike. 

    NPR profiled Being Adept, a non-profit, research- and science-based organization that provides alcohol and drug prevention education to more than 3,000 students in California.

    Adept’s approach is markedly different from drug education campaigns of the past, which emphasized total abstinence through “scare” tactics; the organization’s curriculum focuses on scientific findings that provide students with facts about the long-term health risks of drug use, and allows them to make informed decisions about their own future.

    As NPR notes, Adept’s strategy has been met with positive response from students and parents alike.

    As an example of Adept’s focus, the NPR piece covers an instructor’s presentation for a class of eighth-graders in Larkspur, California. Instructor Ashley Brady opens the session by informing the students that she “is not here to tell you what to do today.”

    From there, she provides a wealth of information that focuses on the impact of marijuana use on brain and body chemistry. Warnings about the side effects of edibles and concentrates on developing brains as well as the strength of THC levels in newer strains of cannabis and the possibility for dependency issues, are offered as fact-based information—modern cannabis is “not the same drug” as the marijuana consumed in the 1970s, Brady said—and without caveat.

    Other classes provide students with strategies to real-world scenarios in which they might encounter marijuana or other drugs—what to do at a party, or ways to cope with stress or emotion without drugs.

    The approach lacks the authoritarian tone that many previous prevention programs embraced; if there’s a key component to how Being Adept talks about drugs, it’s “delay, delay, delay,” said founder and psychotherapist Jennifer Grellman.

    “The way to handle that with your kids is to say: ‘you know, you don’t have to do this now. Maybe you want to use it someday, but not today, not now. It will always be there.’ Just tell them to wait,” she explained. 

    Parents are also included in Being Adept’s curriculum through a special “Parents Night” presentation, where responses like Grellman’s are offered as guidance for those who have expressed concerns over the right way to talk about drugs with children. The program also emphasizes honesty in words and actions—drinking responsibly in front of children, and being honest about their own drug and alcohol use as teenagers.

    “You don’t have to tell the full story,” noted Grellman. “You could say, ‘I did smoke, or I did drink, when I was 13. And you know, frankly? It was too early for me. I made some stupid decisions and I got in trouble.’ You can give them the consequences of it.”

    Students at the Larkspur presentation appeared to appreciate the program’s approach. “It made you feel more mature,” said 13-year-old Devon Soofer. “This class was actually telling you the long-term effects and what it can actually do to you. So it actually made you feel like, ‘Wow, this actually really bad,’ and not just being forced not to do it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com