Student assemblies can be an impactful way to ensure all of your students are informed of the dangers of the fake prescription pills they can easily get online, and to get them talking about this danger with their peers. If possible, we recommend finding someone who has been impacted by fake pills firsthand to talk to your students… affected parents or siblings, DEA agents, law enforcement, counselors, etc. If you are looking for someone local to your area contact realtalk@songforcharlie.org, and we may be able to help. If you don’t have a local person’s testimony, you can still have a powerful student assembly by using one of the below impact stories and the centerpiece of your assembly.

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Suggested agenda for student assembly:

• Personal Story - Testimonial by local family affected by fentanyl or select from one of the impact story videos.

  • 'Fentapills- You Need to Know' (4 minutes)

  • Natural High- Fentanyl PSA film (6 minutes)

  • Cal’s Story

  • Video of teens who have died of fentanyl poisoning (can be played as audience is entering room)

  • Video of recent HS graduates who have died of fentanyl poisoning (can be played as audience is entering room)

  • Zach’s Story

  • Charlie’s Story

  • Wyatt’s Story

  • Eli’s story

• Today’s Drug Landscape- Presentation by local affected family member or law enforcement personnel to summarize what is going on with fake pills made of fentanyl being sold on social media. Resources for drug landscape presentation can be found here.

• How to report drug dealers on social media

• Mental Health/School Counseling- Mental Health and Coping Update

• Q&As
  

The topics of drug use and drug deaths can be triggering to some people. We encourage schools to have counselors on hand in case any students are in need of counselors after the presentation.

Following is an example of a high school presentation:

https://www.songforcharlie.org/sample-presentation-for-students

We recommend that schools and other organizations also host community conversations or town hall meetings to educate students, parents, and other community members about the changes in the drug landscape and the risks today’s youth are facing. As with the student assemblies, we recommend trying to have a speaker who has first-hand experience with fake prescription pills if possible. Town halls can be conducted in person, but we also have seen many communities have wide-reaching success with zoom events. Choose whichever approach you think will work best for your community.

Suggested agenda for student assembly:

• Personal Story - Testimonial by local family affected by fentanyl or select from one of the impact story videos.

  • 'Fentapills- You Need to Know' (4 minutes)

  • Natural High- Fentanyl PSA film (6 minutes)

  • Cal’s Story

  • Dead on Arrival

  • Dead on Arrival /Spanish Version

  • Video of teens who have died of fentanyl poisoning (can be played as audience is entering room)

  • Video of recent HS graduates who have died of fentanyl poisoning (can be played as audience is entering room)

  • Zach’s Story

  • Charlie’s Story

  • Wyatt’s Story

  • Eli’s story

• Today’s Drug Landscape - Presentation by local affected family member or law enforcement personnel to summarize what is going on with fake pills made of fentanyl being sold on social media. Resources for drug landscape presentation can be found here.

• How to report drug dealers on social media

• Mental Health/School Counseling- Mental Health and Coping Update

• Q&As

Organizations may also want to provide parents training on the social media apps their kids are using and how to monitor their kids. Depending on timing, this may be best if presented in a separate forum.

Sample of Community Conversations:

• Beaverton School District Oregon 4/29/21

• Fake and Fatal Community Conversation en Espanol

• Corona-Norco Unified School District California fall 2021

• Fake & Fatal: What Parents and Teens Need to Know (with Vibrant Future) 5/4/22

Teachers, coaches and administrators have a big influence on students and students are more likely to internalize a message when they hear it repeatedly, so we encourage schools to integrate mental health, safe medicine use, fake pill, and substance use into their lesson plans and discussions whenever there is an opportunity. Normalizing discussions also help to remove stigmas around these topics and make it easier for kids to discuss them if they are having issues.

Following are some ideas of how these topics can be integrated into normal classroom discussions:

• Math/Science: create problems using statistics regarding teen mental health and substance use, brain research, ‘happiness chemicals’, science of addiction…

• Humanities: Initiate discussions regarding state & local news, historical drug and prohibition policies, narratives and literature about coping and mental health...

• Health/Coaches: Regularly discuss mental health as a component of overall health, trust/relationship with medical professionals and medicine, dangers of fake pills, where to ask for help…

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The possibilities are endless… ask your teachers what they can do to incorporate these messages into their regular lessons.

Following are some good resources for teachers/coaches:

• The Coach’s Playbook Against Drugs (U.S. Department of Justice)

• Get Smart About Drugs- A DEA Resource for Parents, Educators & Caregivers

• Teachers: Classroom Resources on Drug Effect (NIDA)

• https://challengesuccess.org/

• https://www.dea.gov/education-prevention/community-outreach

• https://opa.hhs.gov/adolescent-health?tag/resources/education/index.html

• Mental Health First Aid Training form the National Council for Mental Wellbeing

College Resources:

• Prevention with Purpose: A Strategic Planning Guide for Preventing Drug Misuse Among College Students (U.S. Department of Justice)

• https://www.campusdrugprevention.gov/

We encourage schools/districts to post warnings across their social media accounts, including those managed by students.

Social media content is available for free at: https://www.songforcharlie.org/social-media-content

Content can be freely pulled from Song for Charlie’s social media accounts and used on your own social media sites:

• Snapchat: Song for Charlie

  • Snap Lense

• Instagram: song4charlie

• TikTok: songforcharlie

• Facebook/Meta: facebook.com/songforcharlie

• Twitter: @SongforCharlie

• YouTube: youtube.com/songforcharlie

• Pinterest: @songforcharlie

• Linkedin: Song for Charlie

Beaverton School District’s free Fake & Fatal social media campaign material can also be obtained by sending a request to community_involvement@beaverton.k12.or.us.

We encourage schools to display posters/flyers around the school and/or send them home in parent newsletters. Song for Charlie offers free posters/flyers/stickers, digital and for print, for anyone to use.

Posters made by students are also - students talking to students in their own language is one of the most effective ways to get through to school aged-kids.

Students talking to students about the dangers of fentanyl might be the most impactful method of getting this message across. Students in districts across the nation have taken action to raise awareness in their communities in the following ways:

• Redwood Bark, the Redwood High School (Larkspur, CA) student newspaper, featured a story “One pill can kill: Addiction, loss, and fentnayl” by Taylor Elliott and Keely Ganong. The article shared the stories of Trevor Leopold and Alex Movahedi, two former Redwood students who died of fentanyl poisoning.

• The student government class at Vista Del Lago High School in Folsom, CA listened to the testimony of parents who lost their son Zachary to fentanyl and planned an awareness campaign that included lawn signs, t-thirts, and more. Their campaign was featured on their local evening news.

• Students at Whitney High School (Rocklin, CA) interviewed parents of young fentanyl victims for broadcasting class.

• Students in many schools have created posters & yard signs to raise awareness. Post in bathroom stalls, hallways, school parking lots... wherever there are teens who need to know!

• We're Fighting Fake Pills, an article in Scholastic Choices Magazine, features three youth who are spreading awareness in their communities.

• A group of students wrote a play for their drama club to perform.

The possibilities are endless. Talk to your student leadership or other student groups to ask what they would do to raise awareness!

• How 3 districts are addressing student fentanyl use, K-12 Dive, Feb 14, 2023

• Districts Are Stocking Up on Naloxone But Often Ignoring Drug Prevention, Education Week, Jan 23, 2023

• Ed Department webinar shares risks, solutions for teen fentanyl use, K-12 Dive, Jan 18, 2023

• Fighting fentanyl: Schools tackle opioid crisis head-on, K-12 Dive, Oct 26, 2022

• Why Districts Are Stocking Naloxone in Response to the Opioid Crisis, Education Week, Oct 10, 2022

• Overdoses at School: One School District’s Response to the Fentanyl Crisis, Education Week, Sept 30, 2022

• Oregon Health Authority | Oregon Department of Education: Fentanyl & Opioid Response Toolkit for Schools (Dec 2022)

• OR-ID HIDTA Fentanyl Bulletin Sent to All Schools in States (April 2022)

• Washington State: Opioid-Related Overdose Policy Guidelines & Training in the School Setting (Jan 2022)

• California Department of Education: Addressing Fentanyl Crisis (Oct 27, 2022)

• Texas Education Agency: Fentanyl Response Communications Toolkit

• Ohio Counterfeit Pill Educational Resources

Kids like swag, and they can be a good reminder of the important messages kids learn. If you would like some Song for Charlie wristbands to hand out to students at your school, contact maryternan@songforcharlie.org at least 4 weeks before the event, and we will do our best to provide you some wristbands.