Were you faced with having to decide whether to try drugs or not while you were at school? Maybe if you’d done a new program being run in Hawkesbury schools, you might have had the will to say no.
Rolled out in November last year, the ‘Not Even Once’ program has already made significant inroads into the attitudes of Hawkesbury students.
Teaching what ICE, ecstasy, alcohol and marijuana do to the developing brain and body, and using young reformed users to tell how their lives got out of control and how they got out of the mess, the two-hour presentation has had a powerful impact.
Averaging the results of the five Hawkesbury high schools which have done the initial segment, before the seminar 61 per cent indicated they were likely to use alcohol, but after the seminar the figure was 48 per cent.
With drugs, before the seminar 17 per cent said they were likely to use drugs. After the seminar 12.6 per cent said they would use them.
One student told a presenter about his own experimentation with drugs and the severe adverse effects he experienced. Another student spoke with a presenter about the drug use of a close friend she has had to distance herself from. She was able to talk about her concerns and discussions were had about what to say if she saw that friend again that could help the friend seek help.
Another student spoke about a family member who was on ICE and the effect it was having on their family and how she could see he was trying to manipulate others to use the drug as well.
The program was started by Tasmanian Christian group Teen Challenge and run very successfully there, with an overall result of 20 per cent of students shifting away from willingness to try drugs.
Years 7-10 at Windsor, Richmond, Hawkesbury and Colo high schools have done the first instalment of the program, as well as Kuyper and Arndell colleges. Bede Polding will do the program this year.
The program came about here when clubs asked Hawkesbury Police what could be done about youths trying to get into the clubs who were clearly on drugs.
Hawkesbury Police had heard of the Tasmanian program and contacted the organisers about bringing it to the Hawkesbury to at least try to avert the next crop of high school students from making bad decisions.
Local charity group ONE80TC, which works with young people to get them off drugs, runs the program here, funded by Windsor RSL.
ONE80TC CEO Mark Hill said while naysayers say we’ve lost the war on drugs, the opposite was true – it was certainly possible to influence young people.
“As a result of education on the effects of smoking, we have one of the lowest uptake participation rates in the world,” he said. “Smokers were once socially acceptable but now they are like a pariah.
“It’s all about informing young people. We want them to make their decision based on sound scientific fact. There is no safe level of any drug in a young body. The male brain doesn’t mature until the age of 28, the female brain a little earlier. If you can get people to delay the uptake of alcohol or marijuana – they are the gateway drugs [to harder substances].”
He said targetting kids in the early years of high school was most effective as “80 to 90 per cent of Year 9 students haven’t tried drugs”.
Teen Challenge’s CEO Tanya Cavanagh said the Hawkesbury program went really well.
“We were really excited to see the involvement of the students in having conversations, asking questions and hanging around afterwards to have further discussions,” she said.
She said what the kids loved the most were the real life stories of people who’d had run ins with drugs. She said they also strongly empathised with the reformed users.
“I was overwhelmed with the positive encouragement many students wrote on their feedback sheets for the Teen Challenge presenters to keep up their fight to stay clean and sober. Hearts were clearly touched.”
She said they had very positive responses from teachers at the Hawkesbury schools as well, but what was most powerful were the students who reached out for help after the program.
“There were three interventions that occurred from students asking on their feedback forms if they could please get help and speak to someone.
“We were able to connect the students into support structures within the school and community services.”
The program will continue this year with further seminars with more information.
Some of the students’ comments from the feedback surveys after the program:
"I usually have a hard time focussing but this had my whole attention" Year 8
"the information was good, it makes you think about your decisions you may make in the future. It was interesting" year 9 student
"Very good I like how they were so deeply into what they were saying" Year 10
"Just wanted to say that talking about your experiences was a very brave thing to do!! Good Job!! Thanks for coming today. AWESOME JOB GUYS TNX" Year 9
"This hit me hard." Year 10
Teacher comments:
"Excellent presentation. Very timely for some of these kids - hope they listened. One of the best presentations I have attended." Support Teacher/Yr 9 adviser
"Realistic content. Tell them how it is!" Welfare Team/Teacher
" I like the science/biology link - very useful." Teacher
"Great use of current data and information. Real life experiences always help students understand. Students were thoroughly engaged." Teacher
"Powerful messages delivered. Good to see we are not beating around the bush with message." PDHPE TeacherTeen Challenge are now in discussions with other states and regions that have also heard of the program and would like it in their areas.
