National Prevention Week occurs this year from May 11th to 17th. It involves communities raising awareness for substance misuse and mental health issues, implementing prevention strategies, and showcasing the effectiveness of evidence-based prevention programs. At H-B, we have two counselors that work with drug and mental health prevention, Siobhan Bowler and Renee Edwards. Siobhan works with alcohol and drug prevention, while Renee works with bullying and suicide prevention. In my first interview, I talked to Siobhan to get some more details about how National Prevention Week works. I then interviewed Renee to get a source from someone who doesn’t focus as much on drug and alcohol prevention. What follows are their responses to my questions.
H-B Reporter: Why is it important to bring awareness of this to H-B?
Siobhan: Yeah, so I really wanted to tell somebody about National Prevention Week for a couple different reasons. One, it’s an opportunity for students and staff to be aware of how substance use prevention overlaps with mental health and wellness. And we have a really well-rounded counseling team now, we have guidance counselor, Renee, a social worker, a school psychologist and we have an intervention counselor. But amongst that team two of us moved onto prevention work, and that’s me with substance use prevention and then Renee with prevention and mental health. So, it’s just the first time we had two people that can really work in tandem.
H-B Reporter: How is the way that H-B highlights drug prevention different from the way other schools highlight it?
Siobhan: So, substance abuse counselors in a way are supposed to highlight two big prevention campaigns every year and one of them is National Red Ribbon Week and the one is Alcohol and Drug Prevention week, so basically one is in October and one is in March and I have to work at two schools so I try to use the T.V. monitors around the hallways and do announcements and then I try to find students who are involved with prevention, especially through the team network board, to set up a tabling event. But the other thing that makes it really different is that I have been doing health fairs at H-B since about 2012. And to me that is really fun because I can bring people outside of H-B to make a much more all-inclusive event. And so then, those events always include substance use prevention and mental health. So that is different from the other schools where I will do mostly, not scrollies as much as morning announcements and some of them have morning announcements on T.V. and then we have to do a lunch time activity. And there are so many students coming in so fast, it’s more like a grab and go, you know, they take a free thing and it’s not really very productive compared to H-B.
H-B Reporter: How has this week changed overtime?
Siobhan: Oh, wow, that is a really good question, and you know what I don’t know the answer, except that it’s not a required prevention week, for substance abuse counselors. And that hasn’t changed because we have these other two big campaigns we have to do. But, how it has changed for me though, is that it is the first time I had Renee here to partner with and that’s awesome for me and the other counselors are also doing mental health but they have people coming to them because they are struggling with a mental health issue. So, finally I have another teammate doing prevention.
H-B Reporter: Are there any particular things you do over this week?
Siobhan: So I don’t have the bandwidth to do that, but what I have done is found four or five really cool posters that highlight vaping prevention and the environmental impact of vaping. I am going to have those put up in the school because I think that once again, it shows how substance use impacts not just one particular person that might be developing an issue, but things we’re not even thinking about. Other than upcoming relationships, and then I would say that moving forward, with Renee’s help, hopefully we could look at not just substance use and mental health, but also substance use and suicide prevention, that’s really important and substance use in particular populations. There is a really high rate of substance use because on people struggling and one of those is the LGBTQ+ community, where depression, anxiety and suicidal mentality are really high and so is substance abuse.
H-B Reporter: What are your best recommendations if a family or friend is under the influence of drugs or alcohol?
Siobhan: Well, it depends on the age of the person, if it’s a young person in the school system, a go-to recommendation is to contact the substance abuse counselor for help because it is always confidential. And when I say it is confidential, that means if a parent calls me, to say that they are worried, then I will speak to them and find out as much as I can and I can’t tell anyone what they tell me. And if they want me to talk to their child, I can do that. And there’s some resources that we can give to them. Sometimes family members contact me because their child is being affected by someone in the family, perhaps an adult or another sibling. In classrooms all across the United States, for every six students in a classroom there is one student that is struggling with mental health.
After speaking with Siobhan, Renee gave me another counseling perspective on National Prevention Week.
H-B Reporter: What experience do you have with National Prevention Week?
Renee: I do have some experience with National Prevention Week. When I was at the elementary school, we would all wear the red ribbon and during lunch we would choose kids to explain about National Prevention to. We would also have some activities and you would get some fun prizes.
H-B Reporter: Why is it important to bring awareness of drug prevention and mental health to H-B?
Renee: These are really important issues and I think that everyone possibly knows someone that might be struggling with either mental health or substance abuse and sometimes both. Bringing awareness can help us to identify it, because a lot of the time students see or think that they have a problem. I have done suicide prevention lessons and bulling prevention lessons and I have students that came to talk to me because they are concerned about a friend of theirs or themselves.
H-B Reporter: What are your best recommendations if a family or friend is using drugs or alcohol?
Renee: I think the best thing is to come to a counselor because when someone is struggling they think it is only them going through this. And they are afraid to say something in fear that they won’t be taken seriously.