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Back to Prevention Stories
One Pill Can Kill
Hosted by:
Vanden Academic Decathlon FNL Chapter
Please briefly describe your Communities Talk activity.
My students, members of our Friday Night Live (FNL) Chapter, held a town hall meeting where we discussed the dangers of underage drinking and how it contributes in so many dangerous ways to the increasing use of fentanyl among teens and young adults. We worked with a local university and our county Office of Public Health to develop the meeting and the students’ knowledge of alcohol, fentanyl, and statistics, which helped both the students’ presentation skills and the Q&A session at the end of the meeting. We promoted the event to the school’s population and our greater community through our FNL website, social media, and local media sites, as well as through print, radio PSAs, and television.
How does alcohol and other drug misuse affect your community?
Our community is like so many others, where the pressures of our students often lead them to consume alcohol and other drugs. Yes, like so many other youth, they are often influenced by their peers and social media. That’s why our chapter is dealing with alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs by creating numerous campaigns to create awareness in our student population and the local greater community, such as with a monthly podcast, recurring social media campaigns, and communications with local merchants in addressing their advertising and alcohol placement (as well as gambling and tobacco). We also work with our California Highway Patrol and Office of Traffic Safety in creating safe driving campaigns. My students just attended a Youth Summit in Anaheim and again presented an audience of their peers with the dangers of alcohol and other substance misuse. Our intent is to positively change our entire county.
Which prevention strategy(ies), as defined by SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, best fit your Communities Talk activity?
- Environmental Strategy - focuses on establishing or changing community standards, codes, and attitudes thereby influencing incidence and prevalence of alcohol and other drug use within the community. The strategy depends on engaging a broad base of community partners, focuses on places and specific problems, and emphasizes public policy.
- Community-Based Process Strategy - focuses on enhancing the capacity of the community to address AOD issues through organizing, planning, collaboration, coalition building, and networking.
- Information Dissemination Strategy - focuses on improving awareness and knowledge of the effects of AOD issues on communities and families through “one-way” communication with the audience such as speaking engagements, health fairs, and distribution of print materials.
- Education Strategy - focuses on “two-way” communication between the facilitator and participants and aims to improve life/social skills such as decision making, refusal skills, and critical analysis.
What goal(s) did you hope to accomplish with your Communities Talk activity?
- Hold meetings or discussion groups on alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention.
- Create alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention action groups (e.g., committees, task forces, and advisory boards).
- Start a youth-led coalition on alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention.
- Develop strategic plans to reduce and prevent alcohol and/or other drug misuse.
- Build coalitions with other agencies or programs to reduce and prevent alcohol and/or other drug misuse.
- Reduce or limit alcohol and/or other drugs outlet density.
- Prevent sales of other drugs at public events where youth are present.
- Implement social host ordinances.
- Draft policy changes for my community that focus on alcohol and/or other drug misuse prevention.
- Work with my local legislators or policymakers to educate about the importance of changes to, or recommend enforcement of, existing laws and policies.
Did you accomplish your goal(s)?
Yes
What challenge(s) did you face in planning your activity this year?
- Lack of interest from the community
- Unforeseen difficulties when planning our activity
- We often find a lack of interest or indifference in the greater community, and we work to identify ways to ensure that our campaigns are effective.
How did you overcome these challenges?
This is a continuing issue. As we become more involved with more projects and create more coalition-building, it is becoming easier to enact change. We have no plan of giving up but only to continue the process of making our youth safe and aware of alcohol and other substances.
What are your next steps?
- Host follow-up meetings or activities
- Create new action groups to tackle specific issues raised during our Communities Talk activity
- Expand our coalition with new partnerships in the community
- Support new prevention policies, legislation, or social ordinances
- Conduct research efforts to learn more about issues in our community
- Create a public education campaign to raise awareness and/or change behaviors around underage drinking (i.e., create PSAs and other promotional materials)
- We’re in the process of building a coalition with San Diego State University.
If you’ve conducted Communities Talk activities in prior years, how has your repeated participation contributed to progress in achieving your prevention goals?
Certainly, the fact that we’ve been doing this now for awhile has helped us out, but we are continuing to strive to improve our projects and reach more of our student population and the greater community. That means we need to continue to improve our social media campaigns.
Organizations that conduct Communities Talk activities often involve other organizations in the planning and execution of events. Please indicate which type(s) of organizations you involved in your activity planning.
- Law enforcement
- Youth-led organizations
- Secondary schools
- Colleges or universities
Which of the following best describes the primary audience(s) for your Communities Talk activity?
- Youth
- Parents
- Teachers or other education staff
- Prevention specialists and volunteers
- Healthcare providers
- The media
- Asian community members
- Black or African American community members
- Hispanic community members
- Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander community members
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBTQ) community members
How did you reach and engage your primary audience(s) to encourage them to participate in your activity?
We did outreach through PSAs; social media, including Facebook; the school bulletin and announcements; and outreach through word of mouth. We were lucky in that our local radio station, KUIC, gave us some airtime, which was of great benefit.
Which Communities Talk resources (or other SAMHSA resources) were most helpful for your activity?
- SAMHSA’s Event Planner
- Tips & Tools for Hosting a Virtual Event
- StopAlcoholAbuse.gov website
- Communities Talk website
- Communities Talk toolkits
- Communities Talk social media content (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
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