Whether it is through your guidance and attentiveness in the classroom or through your support of innovative educational policy, you have a unique opportunity to influence the lives of young people. By becoming aware of and active in substance use issues, you can help keep your students healthy and safe.

Action Steps

• Take a national alcohol and drug education survey. Join Together is conducting an online survey of teachers to learn what is actually happening at the classroom level in alcohol and drug prevention education. Click here to learn more about this project.
  
  
• Make yourself available to your students as a positive adult influence.
  
  
• Work within your school system or university community to review current programs that address drug and alcohol prevention and advocate for research based programs.
  
  
• Research has shown that students who are involved in extracurricular activities are less likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol. Work with your school system to provide beneficial extracurricular activities.
  
  
• Learn what treatment resources are available in your community. You can help identify students that may need treatment and refer them and their parents to help when appropriate.
  
  
• Represent the schools in a local community coalition.
  

Resources

Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies

Preventing Drug Abuse among Children and Adolescents: A Research-Based Guide for Parents, Educators, and Community Leaders, Second Edition

SAMHSA's Model Programs

Classroom Drug Prevention Works: But Left Unchecked, Early Substance Use Haunts Older Teens and Young Adults

NIDA Goes Back to School

Stop Underage Drinking

What others have done

Cincinnati School for Troubled Students
Principal Kathleen Bower unveiled $1.75 million in renovations and expansions to Dohn Community High School, a charter school for students with substance use disorders.

After Bower, then a public school administrator, bought two run-down warehouses for $25,000, she renovated the smaller building and opened the school with only four classrooms and 50 students in 2001. Three years later, Bower raised more funds to refurbish the larger building, hoping to expand the student body to 125 students.

Renovations include a new science lab, four classrooms with computer stations, and two rooms dedicated to counseling, with a library still progress.

As a charter school, Dohn doesn't receive matching state funds, so Bower still needs to raise $650,000 from grants, loans, and donations to finish the renovations. She solicits help from volunteers for the refurbishing work, including her nephew, a Scout helping out with a friend.

"I knew from my experience as a school administrator that when students showed problems with drugs and alcohol, we didn't have a way of helping them. Oftentimes, they couldn't access treatment," Bower said, explaining the need for a school that provided recovery programs.

Dohn offers Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and chemical dependency counseling, and is the only school in the state to conduct random drug tests to get help to the students who need it.

"I felt that there had to be some safety net," said Bower. "It makes sense to provide these services in a school setting. All kids should be in school."