There are many substance abuse prevention resources available for students, too.
Regardless of whether you’re an athlete, the Life of an Athlete website has some critical information about prevention.
teens.drugabuse.gov also has some helpful resources for students to understand more about dealing with these complex situations.
Valuable public service announcements produced by students may be found at the Operation Prevention website.
TEXT-A-TIP: Text TIP BEDFORDNHPD to 88777 with your message.
If you’re concerned about friends and acquaintances with actual and potential addiction problems, you can anonymously text tips to the Police and Fire Department. This is a completely confidential program.
This program provides an anonymous text-communication system for students and other community members. The system allows a person to send a text message to a secure, dedicated number and receive an immediate response. Local experts in adolescent addiction/mental health respond 24/7. Schools promote the program to their students.
Students are more likely to disclose concerns about a friend when the text is anonymous. Most often, friends know more about their friend’s substance abuse than his/her parents.
If an substance abuser friends tell us that he or she was using heroin or other opiod drugs, we would have had a chance to save them.
We don’t blame them for not doing this. Most students, don’t want to “rat” on their friends and get caught.
But, students anonymously text about themselves, expressing substance abuse or mental health concerns. Many students don’t feel comfortable reaching out to someone if they have to identify themselves or they don’t know who to reach out to.
The conversations can continue through anonymous text or can elevate to a phone call/meeting if the student chooses.
Help is a text or a phone call away. This is an entirely confidential program and will help save lives.