ABOVE: Granada-Huntley-East Chain students Sarah Popp Langford and Emma Carlson work on a leadership exercise during an Empower Training Day Wednesday at the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus (SMEC) in Fairmont. Wednesday’s event was organized by the Martin County Substance Abuse Prevention (MCSAP) Coalition and brought in student leaders from across the county to work on leadership exercises and discuss how to prevent substance use among their peers.

FAIRMONT- On Wednesday dozens of students from across Martin County met at the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus (SMEC) in Fairmont for Empower Leadership Training Day to discuss how to prevent substance use in area high schools. The event was organized by Martin County Substance Abuse Prevention (MCSAP) Coalition; a nonprofit which works to prevent underage substance use.

The event’s itinerary focused on giving students from different communities a chance to improve their leadership abilities and learn successful strategies for conducting their operations. Activities at the event included substance abuse awareness presentations, group bonding events, leadership seminars, peer to peer training and brainstorming sessions.

The students participating in the event represented every public high school in the county along with Martin Luther High School and were members of MCSAP’s Empower student groups. These students aim to prevent substance use in their schools through a variety of strategies which they discussed during Wednesday’s event. Outside of Empower, students are typically engaged in other activities and come from a variety of backgrounds. One thing many of them have in common is witnessing the impact of substance use in their families or social groups.

“They know first hand how important prevention is because they’ve seen how it can be a heartache for our families when things like that happens,” said Stephanie Johnson, a long-time MCSAP member and one of the organizers of the event.

While substance abuse prevention is nothing new, some of MCSAP’s strategies are meant to address issues with older public health campaigns.

“One thing we’ve learned over the years through data and prevention work is that scare tactics don’t work,” said Johnson.

Instead, MCSAP is relying on creating positive community norms that try to create and reinforce anti-substance use sentiment among student populations. The Empower student groups are one component of that strategy; members not only promote awareness of the dangers of substance use but are also meant to serve as prominent examples of students who are committed to preventing it.

“If we can promote those kids that aren’t using, those kids that are choosing to make healthy choices, we’ll get everyone else in with them,” said Johnson.

MCSAP is also trying to improve its awareness campaigns by encouraging student leadership and incorporating their feedback into future programming.

“Our Empower kids are incredible and really committed. It’s fun to hear their ideas,” said Shelly Larsen, MCSAP’s Project Coordinator.

“We did surveys and talked to students about who (they) want talking about this. They feel that they get more out of experts telling them what is this actually doing to my body. … Some of our local law enforcement have come to talk about the consequences of (substance use) and all of that we brought to them because we heard from the students that that’s who they wanted to hear it from,” said Johnson.

At the end of the event students brainstormed future goals they’d like their organizations to accomplish and how they could do so. Some goals included interviewing local experts on substance use and creating a podcast to promote substance use awareness.

MCSAP has more programming planned aimed at students for the rest of the school year. On Feb. 3 it will hold a county wide bowling event and on Feb. 22 its members will visit the Minnesota Capitol where they will participate in advocacy training and talk to Minnesota legislators about prevention work. On April 1 the organization will hold a county wide dance and on May 11 students will visit local businesses which sell controlled substances to distribute information on how to avoid selling to minors. Later in June it will hold a countywide swim night.