Students Taking a Noble Direction (STAND) is a positive social norms campaign at Ashland High School that uses social norms messaging to raise awareness that MOST Ashland teens are making good decisions about alcohol and other drugs and that the number of youth who report using alcohol or other drugs is much lower than teens and parents think.
Every year, DAET volunteers and staff work with students to develop posters to correct misconceptions about substance use by youth by using positive messaging around low substance use rates and protective behaviors that are prevalent among our Ashland High School students. Other STAND activities have included lunchtime Q&A sessions for students on marijuana and e-cigarettes.
In the coming years, the Coalition plans to take the positive social norms campaign to a community-wide scale, with messaging about positive norms in other Ashland schools, as well as the broader community. By doing so, we hope to further shift the perceptions around youth substance use in our community to align with the positive culture and norms that our teens have defined.