Surry Central High School will again this year be conducting a slate of activities and presentations for its student body as part of addiction awareness week April 24 – 28.
Charlotte Reeves, outreach coordinator for the Surry County Office of Substance Abuse Recovery, said this year, “They’re doing five different days of community agencies coming to the school so we can spread the information all week long.”
“We do have a packed week,” Dena Cave, a Surry Central teacher and one of the week’s coordinators, before outlining some of the speakers and events that organizers have planned.
The week starts with a presentation by Juan Sanchez and Tonya Oakley on mental health and Raven Lowe and Corinna Tackey will speak Tuesday on marijuana and vaping. On Wednesday, Joe Rick and Robyn Dillon will talk to students; Dillon will discuss her son Jake’s death from an overdose.
The flip side of that coin is found Thursday when the topic is recovery and Noah Sheetz of Pierced Ministries will speak. Also, that day will be members of Surry County EMS to discuss what they are seeing on the ground. Tami Lili will share her story as will Carey and Lon Lowe whose son Noah, a Surry Central student, also sadly died from overdose.
Wrapping the week is the age-old topic of teens and alcohol that is nearly the same discussion that parents were having a decade, two, or three ago. Cave said that Francisco Linares of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, and a Central alumnus, will speak along with Doctors Brandon Mills and Adam McHone of Northern Regional Hospital to give another medical perspective.
“So, we’ve got a full week and in addition to this we’re doing some additional classrooms that are going to be manned with additional lessons from groups like Easter Seals UCP, local emergency department doctors to talk about the results they’re seeing in the emergency room from kids and vaping,” Reeves said.
The efforts at Surry Central are a repeat effort from last school year but Reeves was quick to point out during a recent meeting of the Strengthening Systems for North Carolina Children task force, of which Surry County is a pilot member, it was Cave who had taken on the bulk of this year’s coordination effort.
Getting a coordinated message into each of the schools takes time, Reeves said. “To be honest, I don’t think it has become a coordinated effort county wide yet. That is partly because there is so much to develop in the program. At first, it really means everything to have helpers like Dena. These helpers are people embedded in a multitude of different lives throughout our county,” she explained.
“Some are stay-at-home moms, some are teachers, or professionals but the one thing they have in common is a passion for helping others and the ability to see that something is wrong here. They are willing to give of themselves to help others.”
The group is taking a long look at the correlation between adverse childhood trauma and future outcomes like instances of substance abuse. The cornucopia of stakeholders in the task force included mental health experts, substance abuse counselors, educators, juvenile justice subject matter experts, family members effected by substance use disorder, and individuals who are the living in long term recovery.
Sir Issac Newton’s first law of motion, on inertia, said that a body remains at rest or moving in a straight line unless acted upon. Thinking like Newton, but acting locally, members of the community can have some influence on adverse childhood experiences to reduce trauma if they are aware of them and are willing to intervene.
Finding ways to help that process along is the goal of of the Strengthening Systems task force and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNC Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services who are facilitating the effort with Surry County’s assistance as a pilot member.
Cave is executing the task force model by identifying a need, youth education and awareness of addiction, and then working to have in influence on that issue by conduction another week of programming at Surry Central. “That’s the way it should be,” Reeves said.
“Dena taking it on herself is the sort of thing we want because once we do something and work with a community, school, or agency it is wonderful if they take it over and we just become a support – or cheerleader – or whatever we need to be for them to be successful in their efforts. That way we can work on spreading the work to another school.”
“With only a very limited number of people doing this in the community it is hard to cover the entire county as much as you are able to visualize; there just aren’t enough hours in the day so having helpers, partnerships, and collaborations are so important in this work,” she said.
In another novel approach a new outreach is coming soon when Reeves’ office will be hosting a Sports and Drug Awareness seminar for coaches. Reeves said the level of interest is through the roof. “I am overjoyed and amazed and excited, I got word from the school system that they are going to have ninety people are our coaches event on May 5.”
Rounds of golf have been donated as door prizes for the event in a synergism of local business support along with the group’s outreach. Reeves appreciates the assistance. “These rounds of golf are donated, and I think by agencies working together to support efforts like these is a positive thing.”
The fight against substance use disorder, underage drinking, and vaping require multifaceted approaches from varying directions and a sense of communal purpose as it is this community’s problem and not just the individual who is suffering. Reeves said, “Individualistic thinking and siloed efforts should be replaced with coming together to build a healthy community and promoting resiliency.”
The fight will be a long one and Surry County is invested in it for the long haul and armed with millions of dollars in opioid settlement money that was to be used just for these sorts of initiatives.
“The bottom line is it just takes time for a community to change,” Reeves said. “We did not get here overnight and so it does not make sense for us to think it can be fixed in a short amount of time. However, I do know that the more helpers I have the faster it moves.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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