Red Ribbon Week is approaching, and middle schools across Florida will be raising awareness and facilitating communication about kids making healthy choices. The red ribbons that teachers and students will wear aren’t just for decoration—they signify a commitment to staying safe and resisting the dangers of teenage drug and alcohol use. Such a campaign would seem naturally geared toward high schoolers, but the message is just effective for middle schoolers and even earlier. In fact, the years when kids are 11-14 might be the most important time to deliver these messages.

As much as we want to believe middle schoolers aren’t old enough to be abusing drugs and alcohol, the reality is junior high kids are just as vulnerable as high schoolers, perhaps even more so. The parts of the young adolescent brain that deal with stress are still maturing, and the coping mechanisms they learn now can become ingrained for the rest of their lives. If middle schoolers turn to drugs this early, they can be setting themselves up for a lifetime of struggle.

Tracy Bowen, an Informed Families Ambassador who serves as the coordinator for K-12 Health, P.E. and Drivers Education for all Collier County Public Schools, is a true prevention champion and this month’s star ambassador for her dedication to the children of Collier County.

"I love being an Informed Families Ambassador because I want to be the best role model and advocate for a drug free lifestyle and family-centered life for all of the students, parents and educators in our district," said Bowen.

Bowen was first introduced to Informed Families four years ago through Informed Families Board Member Pat Barton and our partners at Drug Free Collier, Ana DiMercurio and Melanie Black. Drug Free Collier is a drug free coalition with a mission of “uniting the community to protect the children of Collier County from substance abuse.” Bowen works closely with the coalition to implement prevention programming in her school district.

Bowen, whose goal is to have an Ambassador in all Collier County Schools, orders materials for elementary, middle and high schools in Collier County, depending on the campaign, in an effort to educate students and parents – and to engage her school communities in prevention.

In 1985, drug traffickers in Mexico City kidnapped, tortured and murdered DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. A tradition emerged from this tragedy—people started wearing and displaying red ribbons to commemorate his life and to symbolize intolerance toward the use of drugs. That tradition evolved into Red Ribbon Week®, a national event that encourages schools and communities to take a visible stand against drugs and to communicate with kids on the value of making healthy, safe choices.

Red Ribbon Week 2016 is scheduled for Oct. 23-31. As the largest and oldest drug prevention program in the United States, the Red Ribbon Campaign® has reached and positively impacted millions of young people. Here is some more information about Red Ribbon Week 2016, in which an estimated 80 million people will participate, and what teachers and schools can do to make the event a success:

Did You Get The Red Ribbon Message?

Did You Pass It On Correctly?

During Red Ribbon Week®, the red ribbon is used to symbolize the importance of a healthy, drug free lifestyle. This year’s theme, YOLO. Be Drug Free.® was created by two sixth graders in Claysburg, Pennsylvania. It reminds us to take care of our minds and our bodies.

Years ago I directed an after-school program. No matter how hard I tried to educate and set my students on a path to success, if their parents or caregivers weren’t delivering the same message at home, the work was exponentially harder. Furthermore, when our overall environment is sending conflicting, unhealthy messages, we are stressed and challenged. I do believe that one person can make a difference in a child’s life, but by partnering with parents and improving community messaging, the likelihood of raising safe, healthy, drug free kids is vastly improved.

Here’s one alcohol fact we are happy to see: Florida teens are drinking less. According to the 2014 Youth Substance Abuse Survey, past-month alcohol use decreased 10.2 percentage points in middle schoolers and 13.6 percentage points among high schoolers since 2004.

This good news is that there is solid evidence that the efforts of parents, schools and communities to prevent underage drinking are helping kids be safer and make wiser choices. However, this finding doesn’t mean we can back off those efforts. The same survey found that 1 in 5 high schoolers had reported blacking out from drinking, and another 20 percent had been in the car with an impaired driver. Here are more alcohol facts that parents should know:

Teenage drinking remains a troubling problem for parents, educators and communities in 2016. An estimated 4,300 teens die every year from alcohol, whether from excessive consumption or driving while impaired. At this time of year, concerns about underage drinking escalate—we’re in the middle of Homecoming season, which means not only getting dressed up for a dance and decorating the gym, but also high school parties afterward. And it’s not strictly Homecoming that should be on parents’ radars: Teens sometimes  view fall Friday nights as “Go to the football game, then find a party.”

Nonetheless, Homecoming is the big milestone for many teens each fall, and their goal to make it memorable may unfortunately involve booze. Protecting students at this time, as well throughout the entire year, should be a priority, and one way to do so is to encourage high school parties and events without an alcohol element. Here are some tips for achieving this objective and keeping teens safe:

Do You Eat Dinner With Your Children?

Eating dinner together sounds so simple and yet, it is not today’s norm. Why? The answer has something to do with hectic schedules, after school activities and other outside influences that interfere with dinnertime. This reality is most unfortunate because research has shown that the more children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.

So welcome to Informed Families’ first drug prevention tool of the school year: Family Day.  Family Day is a national effort, developed by the Center for Addiction & Substance Abuse at Columbia University, to encourage family dinners as an effective way to reduce youth substance abuse and other risky behaviors.  Join us on Family Day, September 26^th and learn how to have fun through simple exercises.

As an Informed Families board member and the Director of South Miami Hospital’s Addiction Treatment & Recovery Center (ATRC), I’m grateful to share my experience and observations about drug trends from the “front lines” at Baptist Health South Florida. Boy, we really do see it all. On a regular basis, I see many people at their lowest point, struggling with the disease of addiction. For many who attend our programs, I get to witness a wonderful transformation back into good health. However, I am dedicated to doing whatever I can to prevent children and families from getting into drugs in the first place.  

Leading up to the start of each school year, we focus our energy on preparing kids for a success, whether by purchasing the necessary school supplies, meeting with new teachers and mapping out our fall schedule. One thing we hope to never worry about is our kids falling into the wrong crowd and adopting new negative and dangerous behaviors, such as using drugs. But, hoping isn’t enough sometimes. As parents, we need to educate ourselves and take action to protect our children. By staying involved with our children, contributing to their self-esteem, setting healthy boundaries, monitoring behavior, getting to know their teachers, knowing their friends, despite any pushback we might get from them, we are truly making a difference and reducing the likelihood that they will get into trouble.  

Family Day is a national effort aimed at promoting family dinners and building healthy kids. Set for Sept. 26 this year, Family Day emphasizes the value of sitting down and enjoying a meal with your children. The benefits go beyond basic sustenance, reaching into something much deeper: Teens who regularly eat dinner with their families are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. Here’s a deeper look at the value of Family Day and how this simple effort can lead to healthy kids:

Family Dinners, Healthier Kids

The prospect that family dinner ultimately results in healthier kids might seem odd, but research backs up this concept. One study conducted by Columbia University discovered that teens who had frequent dinners (more than five times a week) with their parents were more likely to have excellent relationships with them than those families whose dinners were infrequent (fewer than twice a week). Subsequently, the better the relationship kids have with their parents, the less likely they were to use drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.

A recent New York Times blog post, entitled “How Asking 5 Questions Allowed Me to Eat Dinner With My Kids” by Charles Duhigg, offers a surprisingly simple solution to many of the problems families face in the fast paced world we are living in. Specifically, Duhigg was struggling with the issue of wanting to eat dinner together with his family and finding it very difficult due to his family’s busy schedule.  In the blog, Duhigg offered a solution that helped him resolve this problem, called the “five whys.”

Duhigg, a journalist and author of two books on habits and productivity, suggests that parents examine why they can’t eat dinner with their children by asking “why” five times.