Huntington, NY, June 8, 2012 — The “JUST LIKE ME” DRUG EDUCATION AND ADDICTION PREVENTION PROGRAM PREMIERED IN HUNTINGTON HIGH SCHOOL on JUNE 5 and 6, 2012 with A FOCUS GROUP that included APPROXIMATELY 70 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS.
Just Like Me helps keep high school kids from turning to drugs by empowering them to make healthy choices that come from within. Traditional anti-drug education is necessary, but alone is not enough. Just Like Me is an innovative program that inspires kids come to realizations on their own—about themselves, about their feelings, about their self worth, and their entire community. It is designed to not only steer kids away drug use but to give them coping skills that will last a lifetime.
On June 5th and 6th, a select group of Huntington High School experienced the first phase of this 3-part program, the audiovisual exhibit. Students individually entered a small booth, a replica of a crumbling building, where they encountered a photograph of a young adult addict and listened to a recording of her painful experience with drug addiction. The photograph is printed on a mirror allowing viewers to simultaneously see the addict and themselves—the addict in themselves—suggesting how much they are indeed “Just Like Me.” The experience all but guarantees a deeply poignant experience for a teen audience, as they realize the fragile nature of all of our lives and learn firsthand how bad decisions destroy even the best of worlds. The booth was fabricated by Skyline New York in Hauppauge.
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Students who participated in the Huntington H.S. focus group offered constructive, candid feedback that included statements such as:
“After seeing this, I’d never want to even try any drug!”
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“What if this happens to me?”
“When you’re in there, you’re a part of her world; you’re trapped like she is. In a single moment your life can vanish.”
“I realized it’s not a choice”
“You feel like you are her and you’re in her story.”
Just Like Me fills a need for something more than scare tactics and zero tolerance programs to address the spiraling teen drug crisis. These and other “one shot” programs often fail to make an impact because they are in and out of schools rather quickly and don’t actively engage kids in the solution. Just Like Me’s multi-phase program lives in a school for several weeks, has both the peer-to-peer component, as well as the viral component that can spread the issue of teen substance abuse throughout the school, the community, and beyond. This social network prompts and supports ongoing dialog and education and continually expands the community as Just Like Me travels to more schools.
Just Like Me has the necessary student-driven, emotional, and viral components, as well as the “coolness” factor that can augment biological drug education and make it easier for the kids who need help, to seek it. Teen drug addiction is a community problem that requires a coordinated community effort to effectively address it. Just Like Me intends to be a key part of that effort. Kids are empowered to take responsibility for the problem and coached on how to use art as a vehicle for change. Tackling the problem together, they form communities that support self-discovery, develop self-worth, and leave them with a real sense of purpose as they work to establish an anti-drug culture in their schools and communities. While addressing the issue of substance abuse, they learn valuable life skills that can support good decision making when it comes to drug use and other destructive behaviors.
With the next level of board of education approval, parts 2 and 3 of Just Like Me will be coming to Huntington High School in the fall of 2012. They include an auditorium assembly and community art project. The assembly features a short, riveting film that sparks challenging conversation in a question and answer session between students and addicts who now humanize the affliction and eliminate the stigma associated with it.
Part 3 is an extra-curricular community-based art project where students are invited to take a stand and take action regarding their views and opinions concerning substance abuse. The art project utilizes processes that Rob Goldman has created throughout the course of his art and teaching careers. Here, kids are guided to engage and enroll the larger community—parents, teachers, politicians, businesses—to generate awareness and drive positive action around this vital social issue.
Through this process kids experientially learn how to conceive of and then create something meaningful as a team. They gain a sense of purpose that comes with being part of something bigger than themselves. They recognize that they can make a difference in the world. They learn to care. Designed and created by kids, for kids, the art project is a viral campaign that gives teens a collective voice and a means to be seen and heard. It unites students in their own schools and communities, and then virally connects to other schools and communities across Long Island and beyond, ensuring the foundation of Just Like Me endures long after the program leaves a school. In this sense the art project is much more than just the kids involved directly in the project; it is about their ability to involve and unite citizens around the issue – to get them to care.
Just Like Me is a project of the Center for Creative Development in Huntington. It’s Founder and Creative Director is artist/educator Rob Goldman. Mr. Goldman is a Huntington resident whose two boys attend Huntington High School. Just Like Me is currently seeking Long Island corporate sponsors. For more information, to donate, or if you’re interested in seeing Just Like Me come to your high school, visit justlikemeproject.org or contact Rob Goldman directly at info@justlikemeproject.org or 516-848-4790.
