Author

Vanessa Baioni

Today we’re featuring an excerpt from Tia, a high school senior who recently earned her certification in three EVERFI courses – Prescription Drug Safety, AlcoholEdu for High School, and Character Playbook. Tia reflects on how she has learned to manage her relationships better and shares her realization for the need for drug and alcohol abuse prevention. Congratulations to Tia for being one of our scholarship recipients! 

Student: Tia

Teacher: Mrs. Willard

School: Bay View School

State: Washington

Sponsor: United Way Worldwide

“Sometimes when you walk around at a school or listen to the news you hear and see bad things that make you worry for our country and worlds future. You see the crushing impacts of addiction and the heart wrenching effect of harsh words and ruined relationships. But the one thing that you don’t see is those things that can help. Things that can educate on the terrible impacts of misused alcohol and prescription drugs, that can teach people of all ages how to communicate effectively and politely. One of the things that can change the future of people’s lives, our country, and our world is EVERFI.

EVERFI can educate effectively and engagingly with courses about a range of different things from alcohol usage to healthy relationships. If you have never used EVERFI to help you learn or teach then you are surely missing out on a way to impact yours and others futures. Two courses that can help positively impact lives are the AlcoholEdu for High School and Prescription Drug Safety courses. They teach about how to use alcohol and prescription drugs safely by reading labels, following instructions, and learning how to stick to the standards you’ve set. Not only does this course teach about what you can do to use these products safely, it teaches you what to do if you are already addicted and how to help others that are addicted. Sometimes those that are addicted are ashamed and afraid to tell anyone about their addiction, but EVERFI has still got you covered with information about the signs of addiction.

After taking this course, my class and I wrote letters to an imaginary friend that was having trouble with addiction. This EVERFI course had provided us with all of the information to educate our friend on how to use alcohol and prescription drugs safely, and also how to refuse them effectively. We learned how to write these letters in a polite non-accusing way that would create a safe environment to talk about their addiction. Lastly, after we wrote down ways they can stop their addiction, we wrote about how we cared and just wanted to help. We learned everything we wrote in this letter in these courses and after all of this I feel more prepared and educated to help someone with addiction and avoid addiction myself.

Another course that EVERFI provides is the Character Playbook course. This course talks about relationships, emotions, and how to disagree politely. During this course I got to see specific situations that people were in and choose what action I thought would be best for them to take. Within each section they give you situational examples of what they are going to teach you, and you are asked what action you think is best to take. After the section elaborates on what action was correct and how you can act in that situation you get to see the same situation again and correct your answer.

This format of learning helps you realize what incorrect thoughts that you may have had surrounding relationships, how to deal with emotions, and much more. Another thing that this course explains is how to read others emotions and also how others may read your emotions. This part of the course helped me to learn that everyone sends secret signs of how their feeling even if they don’t notice. I also learned that sometimes you can send false messages that you aren’t trying to send if you aren’t careful.

The EVERFI course Character Playbook helped me to create better relationships with my classmates and better express myself. EVERFI is a program that can create an environment for a positive future in this world. Through EVERFI I have learned how to mend broken relationships, how to help addicted peers, and how to manage the whirlwind of emotions that most teenagers constantly wrestle with. And EVERFI doesn’t only help teenagers; it can educate the young and the old, the loud and the quiet, and people with all different levels of education. EVERFI doesn’t just educate, it creates change.”