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With the opioid addiction epidemic sweeping through urban and rural areas alike, public schools are taking up the challenge to educate students about the dangers of heroin and prescription drugs.
Even so, when a group of students at Freeport Area High School started making a video about the dangers of heroin use, they had no idea the impact it would eventually make on their lives.
“This is probably my most fulfilling piece of film or cinematography,” said senior Emery Meyer, 18.
Meyer, along with Ryan Kane, Gregg Miller, Brandon Bowser and Mason Hacker spent a month working on a nearly three-minute public service announcement video where they interviewed law enforcement, medical professionals and people who had personal stories of heroin's deadly repercussions.
“It just shows how local the heroin epidemic is,” said Kane, 17, and a senior. “It's just really eye opening for me.”
The video received first place in the FBI Pittsburgh Division's HOPE PSA contest. In response to the statewide heroin and opioid epidemic, the FBI Pittsburgh Division has partnered with educators, law enforcement, treatment and rehabilitation facilities to form the Heroin Outreach Prevention and Education initiative. The group works to find solutions to the epidemic, particularly in the areas of education, prevention, and awareness.
“It's the best thing I've ever done in the nine years of working with the FBI,” said Kelly Wesolosky, community outreach specialist for the FBI Pittsburgh Division. “I really love being able to do this work because I'm seeing people really helping other people.”
The video contest began in 2016 and has gone from just four entries to 33 entries. Wesolosky said it's a way to see the epidemic from the eyes of teens. She said first time recreational prescription drug users are usually between age 12 and 17.
“If we're going to reach out to these teens, I need to know what they're thinking,” Wesolosky said. “There's nobody better to tell me than themselves.”
Students want to drive home dangers
Kane said the group from Freeport wanted to stress that the epidemic can affect anyone.
“It's right here on our doorstep,” Kane said. “It's not urban, it's not suburban — it's an everywhere problem.”
Leechburg sophomore Alexis Price, 16, was part of a team who took third place in the competition. She along with her brother Joey Price, Trent Foster, Kat Uyrjevich and Miranda Gard created a PSA that fictionally depicted a student who overdosed.
“We wanted to do something that would actually make an impact instead of just a normal boring storyline,” she said. “We just felt a death in the school would hit people harder.”
Price said the video was so effective that students from other schools who saw the video wondered if there really had been a death.
“Everyone was left in awe,” she said.
Officials work to address epidemic
Many school districts in the Alle-Kiski Valley are starting to take steps in the classroom to prepare students about the dangers of heroin use and overdoses.
Freeport Area High School Principal Mike Kleckner said he is proud of the work the students did with the PSA. He said the district has tried to educate its students about the dangers of heroin and opioids by having speakers come into the school.
“I think we all know that it's out there,” he said. “I think we all hope it's not in our community.”
Kleckner said nothing could really prepare educators for how the heroin epidemic would affect students.
“This is something I don't think any of our folks ever thought they'd have to deal with in their teaching career,” he said.
Apollo-Ridge Superintendent Matthew Curci said he and other high school officials met with students to talk about heroin and opioid abuse and the best ways to educate their peers.
“I think our students have a sincere interest in doing more,” he said.
Curci said the district has always addressed drug and alcohol abuse in its health classes, but has started to think of ways to specifically address heroin. He said students have expressed an interest in hearing from people who have been personally affected.
“They talked about some authentic speakers — people who have had experiences with this to help drive home that point,” he said.
The district has an assembly planned for March in partnership with the Armstrong-Indiana-Clarion County Drug and Alcohol Commission.
Leechburg video production teacher Kris Kulick said he learned about the epidemic alongside the students. He said he hadn't heard of the connection between prescription opioids and heroin before the contest.
“Since then, I've been seeing it everywhere,” he said. “It's kind of neat that we're a part of it and maybe helping make a difference.”
State provides some assistance
The state Department of Education partners with other state agencies to support schools that have students who may be struggling with drug abuse with the Student Assistance Program (SAP).
“SAP is designed to aid school personnel in identifying issues including alcohol, tobacco, other drugs and mental health issues which pose a barrier to a student's success,” said Department of Education Spokeswoman Nicole Reigelman. “The primary objective of SAP is helping students overcome these barriers in order that they may achieve, remain in school, and advance.”
Reigelman said the state has also been proactive in getting overdose antidote Narcan, or naloxone, stocked in schools. In 2016, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a partnership with Adapt Pharma, to make a two-dose carton of Narcan available for free to any public high school in Pennsylvania at no cost. The school must complete an application and submit it to the state Department of Health.
“As communities across the commonwealth grapple with the realities of drug use, it is important for schools to have every life-saving tool in their arsenal to defeat the opioid epidemic,” she said. “Equipping trained medical professionals in our schools with this critical tool can provide overdosing individuals a second chance at life.”
Emily Balser is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-226-4680 or emilybalser@tribweb.com
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