The Salem Prevention Planning team hosted a "town hall" meeting at the Salem YMCA on Tuesday night, November 10, to discuss the results of a youth risk behavior study taken by kids in the sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades in Salem city schools in the spring.
The team is made up of citizens, parents, and professionals, including Salem City school officials and employees.
Although similar surveys have been administered in the past, this one is identical to the one that Roanoke city and Roanoke, Botetourt, and Craig Counties use and will let RAYSAC compare overall youth risk in the Roanoke Valley. Once the test is used in Salem for a few years, RAYSAC will be able to determine trend data.
"We're all here because we care about our youth so much. We want to be there to help them to move into adulthood as safely as possible," said Brooks Michael, teen pregnancy prevention coordinator in Roanoke city. "Although the survey is given in the school, we don't look at these as school issues, we look at these as community isssues," she said.
The survey measures youth attitude and behaviors in five areas: alcohol, drug, and tobacco use; sexual activity; violence; depression; and other health related behaviors like bicycle and vehicle safety. Some of the results in Salem were alarming but were in line with the figures presented from other school systems' surveys:
-It was easy or very easy for a percentage of high schoolers to: 87% get alcohol, 77% get marijuana. Forty-three percent of middle schoolers said it was easy or very easy to get alcohol.
-One in five high schoolers used alcohol in the past 30 days
-23% of high schoolers engaged in binge drinking (Four to five drinks in a row in a two-hour period)
-28% of high schoolers said they were between 13 and 15 years old when they first tried marijuana
Tobacco use was not as overwhelming: 16% of high schoolers smoked cigarettes in the last 30 days; 9% used smokeless tobacco; 9% of middle schoolers smoked cigarettes.
"The things that kids feel like are dangerous they're going to steer clear of, but then there are these mixed messages in the media about the use of medical marijuana and the healthful benefits of a glass of alcohol a day" said Curtis Hicks, a member of the prevention planning team and secondary education coordinator at Salem city schools. He noted the anti-smoking rhetoric of the last five to ten years that has impacted the perception of tobacco.
The team's and RAYSAC's goal is to make youth and parents as aware of the harmful effects of other risky behaviors as they are of tobacco. Salemites, don't be surprised if you start seeing more anti-risky behavior rhetoric around in the coming months and years.
Basic family behaviors that severely reduced the likelihood of risky behaviors included: having clear rules and expectations, eating dinner together, parents knowing childrens' friends and their childrens' friends' parents, and parents modeling good behaviors.
For more information about RAYSAC and the Salem Prevention Planning team, visit www.raysac.org.
Roanoke County is offering a "Guiding Good Choices Workshop: building strong family ties" in January, April, and June of next year for parents of students in grades three through eight. Workshops are also available for schools, community coalitions, faith based and civic organizations, and health/human services organizations. For more information, email Brooks Michael at Smichael@carilion.com or call 314-5030.
