Local Youth Lead the Charge to Reduce Underage Drinking
San Bernardino – This year, young people in Colton High School HEAL Club Friday Night Live (FNL) launched a campaign to tackle underage drinking in San Bernardino County. Friday Night Live builds partnerships for positive and healthy youth development, engaging youth as active leaders and resources in their communities to create positive changes on essential issues that matter to them. Due in large part to changes in legislation and prevention efforts, there has been a 34.5% decline in the prevalence of drinking among 12 to 20-year-olds since 2004. Although rates are declining, 23% of high school students consumed alcohol in the last 30 days, and an additional 14% rode with a driver who had been drinking (CDC, 2022). Young people in the CHS HEAL Club are on a mission to ensure that underage drinking rates continue to decline.
There is a common misconception that all young people are participating in underage drinking. Misleading depictions of youth perpetuate this false narrative in film, television, and social media. Due to the saturation of these images and messages, many young people may feel isolated in their decision not to drink. The behaviors that a group, such as teens, believes to be acceptable are called social norms, and social norms have been proven to influence behavior. Youth in Friday Night Live launched a multi-media initiative to counter negative stereotypes of youth’s relation to alcohol and promote positive social norms by highlighting the stories of their peers choosing healthy behaviors and remaining alcohol-free.
San Bernardino County residents should be proud to know that 70% of all high school students in the Colton Joint Unified School District have never tried alcohol within their community. Students highlighted these positive behaviors by creating posters, digital graphics, and public service announcements to encourage more young people across the county to participate in healthy life decisions. Students permeated their campuses, neighborhoods, online platforms, and airwaves with their messages wherever young people congregate. They also did classroom presentations and engaging lunchtime activities to provide positive alternatives to underage drinking.
With support from the California Friday Night Live Partnership (CFNLP) and a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), students utilized environmental prevention strategies through youth-led initiatives to educate their peers, neighbors, and local leaders on ways to reduce underage drinking.
Throughout the year-long campaign, youth in FNL received training on data collection, environmental prevention, the health risks of underage drinking, public speaking, creating public service announcements, and leadership development in a collection of valuable lifelong skills.
Junior HEAL Club Member Alexa Vazquez-Diaz states, “I want my siblings to be good at math, but not so good that they count how many drinks I’ve had.”
The Colton High School HEAL Club members joined young people in forty-five chapters across California in this collaborative effort to reduce alcohol access for minors and mitigate the damages caused to communities by underage drinking. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
For more information about Friday Night Live, visit fridaynightlive.org.