An awareness effort to steer kids away from drugs and alcohol is now underway across the country.

Red Ribbon Week is a campaign sponsored by National Family Partnership with a goal to help citizens across the country come together to keep children, families, and communities safe, healthy and drug-free.

Officials suggest that during today’s opiate epidemic, the movement may be more important than ever before.

According to RedRibbon.org, participants hope to achieve the goal through parent training and networking.

The movement is celebrated by schools, businesses, government entities, law enforcement, faith-based organizations, medical departments, media and everyone in between.

The awareness campaign has spread specifically to schools and has become widely popular among students.

It is not uncommon for districts to host Red Ribbon Week where students create a theme and host a variety of activities.

Two questions often asked are “Is Red Ribbon Week effective?” and “Has Red Ribbon Week been evaluated?”

To these questions, President of National Family Partnership, Peggy Sapp, provided the following information via the Red Ribbon Week Planning Guide available at redribbon.org.

• Red Ribbon is designed to be an awareness campaign which gets information to the general public about the dangers of drug abuse.
• Red Ribbon is an Environmental Agent.
• Red Ribbon is designed to be an experiential learning lesson for children and adults.
• Red Ribbon is designed to get people talking with other people and working on activities that will help rebuild a sense of community and common purpose.
• Red Ribbon is designed to help parents and schools deliver an effective drug prevention curriculum.
• Red Ribbon is designed to create CRITICAL MASS which is necessary to reduce destructive social norms/behaviors and promote positive social norms/behaviors.
• Red Ribbon is designed to be positive and fun— two things necessary to maintain good mental health.

This year’s campaign is “Your future is key, stay drug-free.”

Statistics suggest that while peer-to-peer awareness seems to be most effective, children of parents who talk to their teens regularly about drugs are 42% less likely to use drugs than those who don’t.

Red Ribbon Week has been recognized October 23^rd through October 31^st since 1986.

You can find the full planning guide including tips, information and pledge forms here.

Michaela Madison Reporting