5 Years of #NotEvenOnce® in this NSW school

Kuyper Christian School has been embracing our #NotEvenOnce® drug and alcohol awareness program for five years. And leadership couldn’t be happier with the impact on students, parents, staff and the greater school community.

Principal Ian Shaw said the program, offered to the Kurrajong NSW school’s year 7-12 students, was engaged to bring clarity to the long-term impacts of drug and alcohol use.

“There’s a juggernaut of marketing for children to engage in legal drugs, let alone the illegal drugs. They’re bombarded. They need this information so they can see things more clearly,” he said.

“And then there’s the whole social media influence, how they use their time and what they fill their minds with. We engaged the #NotEvenOnce® program so our kids are better informed about decisions they make when they’re confronted with temptations or challenges that come their way. Hopefully they establish better habits, better traditions in their generation. I hope they come out with the courage to say No, because they’ve heard what happens when people say Yes, even once.”

Relevant material and an engaging delivery

Mr Shaw said the value of the #NotEvenOnce® program was twofold: strong material with a Christian foundation; and the delivery by people the students could relate to and engage with. While Teen Challenge Tasmania is a faith-based organisation, we respect the secular environment of state schools and all our schools based programs are secular unless requested to deliver a non-secular version, as has been the case with Kuyper Christian School.

“Students get so used to hearing their own teachers’ voices, so when it comes from someone outside the school it has more impact. Someone with life cred and targeted research, they seem to listen and take heed to that.”

When Teen Challenge Tasmania’s director Tanya Cavanagh and the #NotEvenOnce® team visited Kuyper Christian School earlier this month, immediately after the session students lingered to share their own personal experiences. One 15-year-old student in particular opened up about personal and family challenges, and was able to offload burdens and access additional support.

Real life-change

Head of secondary school Jason Shadie said it was incredibly heartening to witness the level of help and understanding shown to a student who would have been at risk of looking for unhealthy options to their extreme life challenges. Examples like this continued to shape and shift the nature of relationships in the school community.

“It’s been a great catalyst for ongoing discussion following the workshops. Students feel comfortable having conversations with their teachers about everything from substance abuse and cyber bullying to resilience. It’s had an enormously positive impact on the students,” Mr Shadie said.

“Each time, students hang back and ask questions—usually they want to share about what they’re going through. That’s a credit to Tanya and the team. By making themselves vulnerable and sharing their own personal stories, they encourage that openness in the students.”

A collaborative approach

Kuyper Christian School has used our #NotEvenOnce® program as a springboard for building some of their own complimentary programs and they look forward to eased Covid restrictions in the future so that the popular parent sessions continue.

“The #NotEvenOnce® team is always well organised, the information is current and relevant, always extremely impactful and students are always shocked by the information shared, but in a reflective, productive way.

“We’re praying that the program continues indefinitely!”

Bring #NotEvenOnce® to your school

We are incredibly passionate about families and individuals not being destroyed by substance abuse and addiction. Our #NotEvenOnce® Projects are turning young people away from the drug world and its destructive lifestyle: 68% of young people who identified themselves as already using or likely to use illicit substances prior to seeing one of our seminars walked away with a complete change of heart.

Find out more about #NotEvenOnce® here.

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