Local youth work to reduce underage drinking
Atascadero High School students will join young people in forty-five chapters across California
– This year, high school students from Atascadero, Morro Bay, and Nipomo Friday Night Live chapters launched campaigns to tackle underage drinking in San Luis Obispo County. Friday Night Live builds partnerships for “positive and healthy youth development, engaging youth as active leaders and resources in their communities to create positive changes on important issues that matter to them.” According to a 2020 report to U.S. Congress, there has been a 34.5 percent decline in the prevalence of drinking among 12 to 20-year-olds since 2004. Local students are on a mission to ensure that underage drinking rates continue to decline.
With support from the California Friday Night Live Partnership and a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, students will utilize youth-led initiatives to educate and develop partnerships with local merchants across San Luis Obispo County to decrease the access of alcohol to minors. They will also launch a multi-media initiative to counter stereotypes of youth’s relation to alcohol and promote positive social norms by highlighting the stories of their peers choosing healthy behaviors and remaining alcohol-free.
According to the 2021-2022 California Healthy Kids Survey, 89 percent of youth do not drink alcohol. Students will utilize environmental prevention strategies through youth-led initiatives to educate their peers, neighbors, and local leaders on ways to reduce underage drinking. Throughout the year-long campaign, youth in FNL will receive training on data collection, environmental prevention, the health risks of underage drinking, public speaking, how to create public service announcements, and leadership development in a collection of valuable lifelong skills.
Morro Bay, Nipomo, and Atascadero High School FNL members will join young people in forty-five chapters across California in this collaborative effort to reduce alcohol access for minors and mitigate the damages caused to communities by underage drinking. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. For more information about Friday Night Live, visit www.slofnl.com.
Links to additional resources can be found below:
2020 Report to Congress on the Prevention and Reduction of Underage Drinking
SAMSHA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies
