The Problem (group 1)

This past week we met as a team for the first time! We spent a time getting to know each other so we knew what the different strengths were and what each team member could contribute. We discussed what our team expectations would be and divided up the coordinator, recorder, checker, and monitor roles amongst the group. We tried to really get a grasp on what the topic was at hand and what we came up with was a school program to combat opioid use for k-3rd grade. The nutrition folks explained their approach to the problem as trying to educate about healthy behavior so students won’t turn to pills to make them feel better. We mentioned bringing in some outside sources (kindergarten teachers) to teach us how to kindergartners think.

Class on Monday hosted the drug czar! I really enjoyed his speech because it was serious but yet a little playful so it was intriguing. Some statistics that he mentioned were very interesting such as 1/3 of all child maltreatment cases involve parental substance abuse and overdose has become the leading cause of death for people under 50. He explained that Indiana is 15th in overdose deaths in the nation which why we are working to combat this problem.

We met as a group after the guest speaker and started to bounce ideas off of each other about how we wanted to go about our project. We decided to possibly gear more towards teaching basic life skills that keep the child occupied instead of teaching the basic “don’t do drugs, drugs are bad” type thing. We discussed wanting to involve a caregiver whether it be a parent, grand parents, or a role model in the child’s life. We also discussed having the children build something rather than have them sit through a presentation with nothing to do.

When we first got this topic I was very interested because I’ve had family members deal with addiction, one of them died of an overdose, and I had a girl I grew up knowing also die of an overdose so I was ready to get to work! I feel like we are doing great work with trying to reach the children so young because sometimes middle school is too late. I am learning so much about how different professions think and apply it to be able to work together and so far I have really enjoyed the experience although I was very nervous at first.