Fentanyl has caused a dramatic increase in drug deaths in communities all across America. With the introduction of fentanyl, communities are seeing a new category of victims: kids and young adults experimenting with pills, many for the very first time. We believe Beaverton School District (BSD) in Oregon is the first school district in the nation to address this issue head on. In the spring of 2021 BSD hosted a Fake & Fatal community conversation to warn parents and students about lethal fake pills that are easily accessible on social media, and they added the topic of fake pills to their health curriculum, educating all 22,000+ of the middle and high schoolers in their district about the dangers of fake pills.
BSD has made all of their material available to the public for free, including their teacher-developed curriculum, the Fake & Fatal community conversation videos and slides, social medial campaign, and marketing material. Any school district who is interested in using this FREE material is welcome to download it from the BSD or Song For Charlie website, and modify to fit their needs (though really it could be used as is!). BSD does not have the resources to promote this live-saving material, so Song For Charlie is stepping in to help.
Convincing your school district to implement fake pill education may seem like a no-brainer, but not all districts have been open to providing such education. If you are interested in approaching your local schools about implementing fake pill education in your community, we recommend you attend this webinar on Tuesday, July 13 at 5-6:15pm PST to learn about the PAIR approach developed by Song For Charlie and get tips on how to get the attention of your school leaders.
We know there are many different approaches to solving the fentanyl problem- legislation, border control, social media reform, etc are all important, but they will take time. In the meantime, we feel it is important to WARN THE KIDS! And the best place to do that is in the schools. Now there are FREE tools that any school can use to educate kids on this important issue.
We invite you to approach your local schools. We invite you to attend this webinar. We hope to see you there!
