Many residents have voiced their agreement that school districts should take advantage of drug education programs offered by the Robert Crown Center as DuPage County board members strongly expressed in February.

Located in Hinsdale, the Robert Crown Center offers schools numerous health programs including the Heroin Prevention Program and the Alcohol and Marijuana Prevention Program.

Mark Robinson, the Heroin Prevention Program Manager of the center, is aware that schools’ decisions to utilize these programs may not only be influenced by busy schedules.

“Sometimes there’s a stigma when schools take on a program that addresses heroin and other drugs, that if you’re introducing this to your students that it admits that your school may have a problem,” Robinson said. “And actually DuPage County has helped to fund this program for schools in the county that are interested. But sometimes that can be difficult because the funding will not continue to be there, so there will be a point where the school will need to maintain the costs, which they may not be able to maintain due to budget cuts and such.”

Despite these barriers, the center continues to advocate for its mission to help kids avoid any risky behaviors that they are inclined to make as developing teenagers.

“Our main focus is to make sure we help prevent any first-time use of drugs, and with sexual education, we want to make sure kids understand how their bodies develop,” Robinson said. “We want to make sure we’re helping equip them to make the best decisions that they can.”

The majority of programs are taught by one of the educators who travel to schools to teach students in classes of around 30-50 at a time.

Train-the-trainer programs, such as the Heroin Prevention Program managed by Robinson, are implemented to help schools utilize the center’s Learning Management System. The system houses all the lesson plans used by center trainers who go out to instruct the teachers on how to navigate the PowerPoints, implement activities and includes interactive software programs that simulate real-life situations.

Central’s Student Resource Officer Ann Quigley believes that such education programs are indeed beneficial to students.

“Knowledge is power, and it never hurts to continue to educate them on the dangers,” Quigley said. “It all depends on the state of mind of the student. Some will listen, whereas others will not.  Some feel they know it all and do not need to listen.”

Though many of the Robert Crown Center’s programs are catered toward junior high schools, many train-the-trainer programs offer the opportunity for upperclassmen to work with the freshman as they transition to a new school.

“With the social-emotional learning lessons and how to deal with certain situations, we’ve had juniors and seniors help to teach those lessons because kids may not want to just hear the teacher lecture,” Robinson said. “So we think it’s good to hear it from some of your peers and someone not that far out in age.”

Freshman Ed Skrabacz prefers to avoid any association with drug influence but considers drug education programs beneficial.

“I think what will really get to kids is the psychological aspect of [drug use] and how it affects your brain rather than simply saying just not to do drugs,” Skrabacz said. “It’s important to examine how drugs affect your everyday life, and I think we should implement these programs a little bit more just to get the message more out there during the year.”