By Jondi Gumz
For teens in Santa Cruz County, cannabis is illegal but easy to get. Judging from disciplinary incidents, vaping has been on the rise. Now help is at hand, thanks to a $1 million state grant to be spent over three years.
The money was awarded to the Santa Cruz County Behavioral Health Division’s Substance Use Disorder Services Prevention Unit from a Proposition 64 grant to decrease cannabis use among youth.
Starting with Santa Cruz City Schools, which has social workers and interns available to work with youth, the new Thriving Youth & Community program will create a system to support academic success, social and emotional well-being, and connection to school and community with the goal to reduce disciplinary incidents.
Students can be referred by a parent, school staff, or probation staff. Teen self-referrals are encouraged.
Youth will be placed in one of three pathways — prevention, intervention or smoking cessation. All three will offer positive youth development programs with Invincible Youth and leadership opportunities with Friday Night Live.
Up to 125 students can be served in the prevention pathway.
The “Seven Challenges” program, with weekly group sessions, will be part of the intervention pathway.
Project EX, a researched program with a talk show format and yoga to address motivation to quit, will be part of the cessation pathway, which will be open to students countywide and take place online due to COVID-19 restrictions.
In a 2019 survey, 65 percent of Santa Cruz City School ninth graders reported it’s “fairly easy” to “very easy” access to cannabis. And vaping-related referrals to juvenile probation were up.
Erik Riera, the county Behavioral Health Director, predicts participating youth “will have increased knowledge of the harmful impacts of recreational cannabis use and well as increased refusal skills and decreased vaping use” and “experience an increase in peer, adult, school, and community connectedness.”
School staff, parents and teens can make a referral to: www.pvpsa.org/youth-prevention-programs at 831-728-6445 or email [email protected].
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For more information, see www.santacruzhealth.org/HSAHome/HSADivisions/BehavioralHealth/SubstanceUseDisordersServices/YouthTreatmentCoordination.aspx, call 831-359-8450 or email [email protected].
For a 2.5-minute video about the program, see spark.adobe.com/video/SInAXMitRohTl