April 2010 Calendar Resources

• SADD Awareness Month
• Safe Prom and Graduation Awareness
• Alcohol Awareness Month
• National STD Awareness Month
• Sexual Assault Awareness Month
• National Public Health Week
• Global Youth Service Day
• National Alcohol Screening Day

SADD Awareness Month

SADD Awareness Month is a national campaign during prom and graduation season to address the serious issues of underage drinking, driving under the influence, highway safety, and other destructive decisions young people face. The dangers are no longer limited to just underage drinking and impaired driving. Underage, inexperienced drinking and drug use are strongly linked to other destructive and dangerous consequences such as violence, suicide, unwanted pregnancy, alcohol poisoning, and date rape. Awareness Month is an opportunity for SADD chapters to get the entire student body and the community involved. The key to reducing these incidents is constant education.

This is also an excellent opportunity for your clubs to show off all of the many wonderful activities that you’ve done over the year/s to promote good decision making. Here are just a few examples of what your club could do:

• Create a collage of photos with past and present club members and hang it in prominent place. Invite all past and current members to autograph the collage with good wishes.
• Set up a table with scrapbooks, photo albums, and videos of past and present club activities.
• Select a teacher, student, and/or administrator who has been very supportive of SADD and give them a certificate of appreciation.
• Pick a particular day and have all past and present SADD club members wear their SADD t-shirts.
• Put a full-page ad in your school paper listing your clubs greatest achievements.
• Read those accomplishments to the student body over the morning announcements.
• Send the FLORIDA SADD office any other ideas that you may have.

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Safe Prom and Graduation Awareness

Statistics show that prom and graduation season is a time of year when teens are most likely to consume alcohol and most likely to get behind the wheel of a car after they have been drinking. That means it is a time of year when SADD chapters can make a real difference by encouraging their peers to leave alcohol and other drugs out of their prom and graduation celebrations.

Here are activity examples from SADD National:

• Stage a mock DUI (Driving under the Influence) arrest with the aid of local law enforcement officers to demonstrate to students what happens when they are stopped for driving under the influence.
• Conduct a Mock Crash (sometimes called Mock Prom) to demonstrate the results of an alcohol-related car crash. Mock collisions leave a lasting impression on students. Through the joint efforts of the fire and police departments, hospital, life flights, EMTs and other agencies, the mock crash demonstration simulates arrests, rescue and medical transport of the injured students and the death of others. Ask your School Resource Officer for help putting this together. A "How To" manual is available from the SADD National Office. Just fax your request to 508-481-5759.
• Arrange to have elementary students write personalized, handmade greeting cards for the tables at prom urging prom-goers to have a safe, alcohol and substance-free prom and graduation. This is a great activity that raises the awareness of the younger children, plus their crayon-drawn cards are cute, often funny, and very touching. They remind older students that their young counterparts look up to them and care about them.
• Stage a debate about alcohol and teens. Many students who don’t drink find it difficult to share a "no use" message with peers because they imagine they will be ridiculed and ignored. Hold a debate about alcohol and teenagers. One team could argue why it is OK to drink as long as you don’t drive, while the other group could argue why it is not. To make this activity effective, it will be necessary to have two teams do some solid research into the legal and health/safety issues surrounding alcohol use. Make sure the debate takes place in a well-ordered manner. It should not be allowed to disintegrate into a shouting match or free for all. Faculty supervision and a strict debate format (with timed statements and responses and no interrupting allowed) can help keep the discussion on track and coherent. The goal of the activity is to get teens to think realistically about what alcohol is and what it does. Don’t worry about the possibility that the pro-drinking team will "win" the debate. If the arguments are phrased in logical terms with good documentation, alcohol and drinking will invariably look pretty bad. A debate allows you to highlight the dangerous consequences that often result from teen drinking, such as violence, date rape, suicide, alcohol poisoning, etc. Remember…people do not change their behavior before they change their minds — somebody or something must get them thinking about an issue. This activity is meant to provoke thought. Once people start really thinking about the issue, they may modify their drinking behavior or even stop altogether.
• Deliver a message each day on the public address system. Ask local radio stations to record PSAs and to broadcast them. If your school has a radio station and/or TV station, record and broadcast PSAs on that station. Sample PSAs can be found in this newsletter.
• Erect a billboard. Design a billboard to promote the message to have a safe, drug-free and alcohol-free prom and graduation. Have it put up in your community.
• Place a wrecked car in front of the school to alert students about the dangers they face from impaired drivers and other destructive decisions. Remind them that drivers do not have to be drunk to be impaired – it may only take one drink to make someone impaired.
  
  Note: Be sure to be sensitive when conducting this activity. Do not use a car in which there has been a death or serious injury in your community. Share the Prom Pledge and Contract for Life with students during lunch hours and other events.

As you begin planning your Awareness Month activities, remember — the SADD message is one of caring, not judging; inclusion, not exclusion. Focus on traffic safety and preventing alcohol and drug use and abuse, not criticizing those who make a poor choice.

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Alcohol Awareness Month

Website: www.ncadd.org/programs/awareness/

Alcohol Awareness Month, sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence since 1987, encourages local communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues. Alcohol Awareness Month began as a way of reaching the American public with information about the disease of alcoholism - that it is a treatable disease, not a moral weakness, and that alcoholics are capable of recovery.

Please visit the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence web site (http://www.ncadd.org/programs/awareness/index.html) for a free Alcohol Awareness Month kit filled with everything you need to have a successful campaign.

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National STD Awareness Month

Website: www.ashastd.org

Throughout National STD Awareness Month, The American Social Health Association (ASHA) will feature various STD-related information on both its main website, www.ashastd.org, and on its Website that targets teens and young adults, www.iwannaknow.org. Free CDs featuring a series of 5 radio public service announcements are available to media representatives on a first-come-first serve basis. CDs may be obtained through ASHA’s Community Outreach and Media Relations Office at 919-361-8439. ASHA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping STDs and their harmful consequences to individuals, families and communities. ASHA produces educational materials on sexual health; operates national hotlines for herpes, HPV and cervical cancer, as well as AIDS and other STDs. ASHA advocates for strong public health programs to prevent the spread of STDs, and funds research to find better treatments.

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Sexual Assault Awareness Month 

Website: www.nsvrc.org

Recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month each year highlights sexual violence as a major public health problem and reinforces the need for prevention efforts.

• The National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) found that 1 in 6 U.S. women and 1 in 33 U.S. men has experienced an attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000).
• More than half of all rapes of females occur before age 18; of those, 22% occur before age 12 (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000).
• According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) more than 260,000 rapes or sexual assaults occurred in 2000; 246,180 of them occurred among females and 14,770, among males (Department of Justice, 2001).
• The National College Women Sexual Victimization Study estimated that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape during their college years (Fisher, Cullenand, Turner, 2000).
• Fewer than half (48.1%) of all rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (DOJ, 2001).
• According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey of high school students, 7.7% of students had been forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to. Female students (10.3%) were significantly more likely than male students (5.1%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse. Overall, black students were significantly more likely than white students (9.6% vs. 6.9%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse (CDC, 2002).

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) offers free materials for the creation of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) posters. These materials include those elements you will need to produce your own posters and customize them to your campaign with your own contact information. The materials include a template for a Spanish version of the posters. All the CD contents are available for from their web site. They have taken steps to ensure that your club is able to personalize and print these materials, either by using your own computers or a professional printer. Visit their web site for more information at www.nsrvc.org. Click on the “Site Map” in the left column, and then scroll down until you find the Sexual Assault Awareness Month link. For more information and ideas please visit www.vawnet.org.

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National Public Health Week (April 5-11)

Websites:
www.apha.org
www.nphw.org

The web site for National Public Health Week has many links that are open only to members of American Public Health Association (APHA). However, by going to the “Site Map” in the top right corner, then typing in National Public Health Week, I was able to find links that had many ideas for activities.

Some of the ideas include:

• Asking everyone to dress in purple, the official color of APHA, for one day.
• Holding a marathon or awareness walk.
• Hosting a health fair.
• Present a Public Health Champions of the Year Awards to a faculty, staff or administrator at your school for doing something that improved the health of your school, even though it is not their job.

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Global Youth Service Day (April 23-25)

Website: www.ysa.org

Global Youth Service Day (NYSD) is the largest service event in the world, mobilizing millions of young Americans to identify and address the needs of their communities through service. Global Youth Service Day is also an opportunity to recruit the next generation of volunteers and educate the public about the role of youth as community leaders. Visit their web site for tons of ideas and information for your club.

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National Alcohol Screening Day (April 8)

Website: www.mentalhealthscreening.org

National Alcohol Screening Day (NASD) is a program which addresses a range of drinking behaviors from risky drinking to alcohol dependence. NASD is designed to raise public awareness about the consequences of at-risk drinking and alcohol’s effect on general health, as well as specific medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Please visit their web site at http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org to find out how your club can host a screening event, plan an awareness campaign, and get facts and information to help your club.

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