Alaska Guardsmen teach cadets drug awareness skills

by Alaska Army National Guard Sgt. Balinda O'Neal
AKNG Public Affairs

11/17/2014 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Alaska Army National Guardsmen returned to Colony High School to teach drug awareness and coping strategies classes to Army Junior ROTC cadets in Palmer this week.

Sgt. 1st Class Diane Singh, the state resiliency coordinator, and Sgt. Monique Andrews, a victim advocate coordinator, spent three days with the cadets teaching a modified version of the Army's resiliency program paired with drug awareness.

"Part of our mission in the National Guard is to serve and protect the community and we feel implementing a program that will eventually combine sexual assault and harassment awareness, suicide prevention and drug awareness will increase over all safety and resiliency in our community," explained Singh. "The enemy is not just the terrorist on the war front, it is drugs in our home state."

The AKNG instructors incorporated activities and lessons focused on the way substances affect the body and brain.

They also covered alternatives to improve overall mental fitness without the use of substances.

Students deal with different stressors than adults, who stress about things like work and bills, Singh said. She said it's like students live in a different world.

"It's very important that we communicate in their language," explained Singh. "The response has been great, they interact and they're having a good time with the activities that we have."

"The last three years we have just had our instructors to teach the cadets," said Kali McCafferty, Colony High Army JROTC cadet battalion commander. "Having a new face that is very energetic and very excited to talk about this and address this issue is really great, and having them here as guest instructors, all the cadets are loving it."

Drug awareness and coping strategies have been taught in schools for many years and statistics show that schools using prevention programs reduce the number of kids who indulge in risky behaviors like drug use.

Singh said that she doesn't want the message to be limited to "don't do drugs"; she wants to leave the cadets with tools they can use to stay resilient.

"This program is in the pilot stage and we hope to bring it to all schools in the Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna school districts," Singh said. "The presentation is interactive, engaging, empowering, educational and fun."

McCafferty said she hopes the instructors come back to teach suicide prevention training, another mandatory annual requirement.

"Any of our mandatory classes that we have, that we can reach out to the Guard and let them come and help us out, I see it as a win for both," said 1st Sgt. Derek Heavner, Colony High Army JROTC instructor. "Not just for the mandatory classes, but to come in and teach classes on any other number of topics that we have too."

"Hopefully, we continue to do this in the future, not just Colony High School, but any school or any program could probably benefit from the same level of instruction," added Heavner.