The Aspen School District is hosting a youth substance abuse prevention workshop

The Aspen School District (ASD) hosted a workshop Thursday as part of a campaign to educate parents, students and the community on how to prevent youth from abusing substances.

Aspen Family Connections, the school’s family resource center, partnered with the Soundcheck Prevention Network, a substance abuse prevention nonprofit, to lead a conversation with parents at the school as part of a multi-year substance abuse prevention campaign.

Years of surveys show Aspen youth have higher rates of substance use, more casual attitudes toward substances and higher access to substances than elsewhere in Colorado, Aspen’s principal said Family Connection, Katherine Sand.

“We feel that in this community, we have a duty to really address these issues,” he added.

He formed the organization after the city agreed to direct tobacco tax funding to addiction prevention three and a half years ago. He joined forces with Soundcheck to assess the addiction-related needs of Aspen’s youth population and embarked on a campaign to educate with Soundcheck.

The two groups spoke to classes of teenagers in ASD this week, encouraging an open conversation about risk factors around substances, substance misuse and addiction. They spoke to parents Thursday night about preventative measures regarding youth addiction.

Soundcheck CEO and founder Will Straughan said prevention is a combination of education and early intervention.

“Education needs energy, which is presented here, providing the school, the teaching, the financial resources, all these different kinds of things,” Straughan said. “And early intervention takes courage.”

He said they talked to students about basic risk factors that could influence their likelihood of substance abuse, including genetic history, their environment and the age at which they first get involved the substances He added that children are significantly more likely to develop substance addiction if they are introduced to substances before the age of 15.

He said they also work to dispel myths about substance use among student populations by introducing statistics about how many young people actually use certain substances because students have a tendency to overestimate. For example, vaping use among high school students dropped from 30 percent to 17 percent in two years, he added.

“Seeing a statistically significant drop is very important for them to hear because they’re judging,” he added. “How will I fit in?”

Sand said they recently secured federal funding to continue their educational mission for the next five to 10 years and form the Aspen-Pitkin Healthy Futures Coalition in partnership with Soundcheck.

“I think our joint goal is to take the stigma out of these conversations because this is everybody’s problem,” he said. “This is not a finger-pointing exercise. This is not a shaming exercise. We all want to raise our children to have a great life.”

Straughan said there is already plenty of help and resources for those struggling with substance use in Aspen, but they could focus on unity.

“One of the missing elements is everyone channeling it in the same direction and communicating together,” he said.

Lee Bergeron, Soundcheck’s director of program development, encouraged parents to have open conversations with their children about substances and equip children with knowledge about their family history and potential levels of risk for addiction.

“It’s hard to say a hard and fast (rule) of when to talk about that information. But if you have that feeling that your child has something or is aware,” Bergeron said. “It’s a good time to start digging into this and bringing these things up.”

Straughan said they wanted to create a program that involved the entire community about substance use and youth education.

“It shouldn’t just be in the school. You have to involve the parents and the community,” he said. “It can be a collective effort.”

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or emailed at [email protected].