Congratulation on another successful year of Peer 2 Peer training and delivering your wellness workshops for the FHMS health classes!

This year, Rock Solid President Luke Fincher, Presley Clark, Madison Buehler, and Haley Rennick taught 2 sessions of the Peer 2 Peer material (Media Literacy/Marijuana Facts Game/Social Norms) to the other teens from the region. We are very proud of their time commitment and dedication to helping promote a healthier community! Even during these challenging times of virtual learning, these teens stayed connected and engaged to help build community!

The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day addresses a crucial public safety and public health issue. According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 9.7 million people misused prescription pain relievers, 4.9 million people misused prescription stimulants, and 5.9 million people misused prescription tranquilizers or sedatives in 2019. The survey also showed that a majority of misused prescription drugs were obtained from family and friends, often from the home medicine cabinet.

The DEA’s Take Back Day events provide an opportunity for Americans to prevent drug addiction and overdose deaths. It’s also good for the environment, by not flushing medications down the toilet into water treatment facilities.

San Juan County has 5 permanent drop-off bins year-round, too. Please check out the info at this link.  take-back-your-meds

Congrats to our youth leaders of Rock Solid for volunteering to complete this 6-week training with Peer 2 Peer Trainers with United General! Each team member volunteered 15 hours to learn and then another 4 hours sharing this wellness workshop material. In addition, Luke Fincher helped train the new team members to teach some of the material he learned in last year’s Peer 2 Peer Training with this year’s regional cohort! Outstanding job, Luke! We admire your dedication to helping support a healthier community!

Rock Solid President Luke and team members Presley, Madison, and Haley will  ”Pay it Forward” by teaching a wellness workshop to our FHMS health classes this school year, too. Youth teaching youth is a powerful way to share important topics on health and wellness. Some of the topics include Social Norms, Healthy Youth Survey data, Media Literacy, and using the youcanwa.org website, a trusted resource; they created a game to test one’s knowledge about the facts of marijuana use and youth. Well done, team!

Congrats to our Rock Solid Youth Leader, Luke Fincher, for continuing to pull in the younger prevention leaders from the middle school in this meaningful project. This year is the second year Luke (and Rock Solid) taught these workshops in the 7th Grade middle school health class. Luke is hoping that by mentoring the younger leaders, now 8th graders, they will want to help teach these wellness workshops again each year!

Youth teaching youth is very influential in sharing these messages of health and wellness. Luke chose this topic for his Community Projects Class this year as a Junior, so next year, he can still mentor these younger student leaders as they enter 9th grade. We are proud of Luke and the younger students willing to step up and lead by example. Well done! Luke’s mentor is our executive coordinator, Cynthia Stark-Wickman for this project.

CONGRATULATIONS! We are thrilled about the WA. State Prevention Summit’s Award of Excellence for a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD given to our dedicated and caring executive coordinator, Cynthia Stark-Wickman! Cynthia has cultivated an uplifting and inclusive environment so our community can grow in hope, science, and positive outcomes! Please join us in thanking Cynthia for her years of service and commitment to wellness promotion and prevention strategies which make our community a better place to live:) Thank you, Cynthia! You are so deserving of this acknowledgment and more!