The origin of this program came from the Resident Assistants of the East Purin Staff trying to come up with ways to engage students in educating themselves about the myths and facts about drugs and alcohol use. Using some resource found from a previous event we came up with several stages of this event that sparked residents interest before providing them with information. We connected our ideas with the Truth About Drugs They Lied campaign and began implementing the event!

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This program was done in 4 stages: Stage One: The staff took pictures of themselves just showing from the nose to their mid waist. The photos were than photoshopped and turned black and white. A sensor bar was placed across their faces reading "They Lied" these posters were than hung all over the walls in several communities. This was meant to spark the interest and get residents to begin to question what these signs meant or were referencing. Stage Two: A week after stage one was implemented, the original posters from the They Lied campaign were printed off and hung amongst the communities as well. These posters were provided by Drug Free World and the "Truth About Drugs" campaign. The They Lied posters covered topics from Alcohol, Marijuana, Ecstasy, Prescription Drugs, to even sniffing and huffing. They read "They said prescription painkillers were totally safe.---- THEY LIED" or "They said weed wouldn’t lead to harder drugs.---THEY LIED" or "They said if I got drunk, I’d be one of the guys.---THEY LIED" Each poster was meant to address myths said about the drugs that often people fall into using them because of. We used both 11x17 and Large Scale Posters. Stage Three: Next 10 Bulletin Boards were created and placed in each of the communities and the entry way of the building. These gave detailed information about a selected drug (a different one in each community) the bulletin boards were designed to break down myths and facts about what the drugs can do to you, some reasons why people did them and their stories, some short term and long term effects, not to mention some things people would have never thought would happen because of them. Stage Four: Each RA connected with the members of their communities and talked about the impact each stage had (this was not directly a stage as it happened throughout) the thoughts and reactions of each student and what they learned.

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The goals of this program were to take a unique approach to common difficult issues that students/residents need to be educated on. With that we came up with the staged events. Stage ones goals were to really spark the interest and raise questions. Stage two was meant to introduce the drugs and they lies that have been told. Stage three was meant to really bring the educational information to the residents but also get them to interact amongst the communities. Stage four was really geared toward building those connections with the residents and having those conversations about their thoughts and reactions. The staff wanted students walking away with information so when face with a choice in the future even if its just alcohol or pot that they are educated.

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This event really sparked interest and allowed for residents to become educated about the drugs. It also got a greater community involved including different staffs involved and questioning. This event also brought communities together as this event was on a large scale to our entire hall which had them interacting amongst each other. It also really broke down information about these drugs and had residents asking questions and engaging in the material. This showed that they were really starting to learn something, which than intern will hopefully help them make informed choices in the future.

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This program worked really well as the stages worked how they were suppose to. Residents were asking questions from the start and really interested in the material. The posters were powerful and strangely enough caused people to steal some of them which sparked new types of conversations. The event allowed for the communities to come together and really interact with one another. This also provided a great point of interest for conversation between residents, their RAs or even guest of the communities. The bulletin boards were even traded and swapped between communities to reach a broader audience even this coming month as well.

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Using or stages is really suggested for adapting this program. First come up with a way to spark interest with the They Lied method, you can take pictures of yourself, residents, student leaders, etc. Photoshop them to have a black bar across their mouth saying They Lied. Hang these posters following a week or so later with the posters found here at http://www.drugfreeworld.org/download.html When creating the bulletin boards look at that website as well as they have booklets that can be adapted to make the bulletin board as well as some video clips and things that could even be played in the communities. Make sure that you monitor this event and really have those conversations during and following to really get residents engaged and educated.

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