All About WISE

What is WISE?

WISE is an Emma Willard Psychology Interest Group founded by Yerin Cho, focusing on adolescent substance abuse awareness campaigns. It stands for Wellness Initiatives for Substance-Free Environment and serves to educate adolescents to make WISE decisions in life. This program falls under DrugZero.

Consisting of 20+ members, WISE advocates for health education and volunteers at local sites primarily at the Troy Boys and Girls Club.

Both at school and at this youth club, we give adolescents awareness of the effects of illicit drugs and empower students to set healthy boundaries in relation to drugs. After completing the workshop series, WISE aims that adolescents will be able to make smart and informed decisions around various forms of substance use.

Here is a series of workshops that are built solely by Yerin Cho, and feel free to download and distribute them in your community! We hope that our work inspires people worldwide.

Effects of WISE's Anti-Drug Education

Initial

Final

We evaluated two awareness surveys before and after we held educational sessions at the Troy Boys and Girls Club.

Overall, we saw a great increase in awareness of substance abuse and illicit drugs. Since students already had a high awareness of substance abuse, our focus was to bring more awareness to illicit drugs. After several sessions that covered information and effects of illicit drugs, I believe that they developed a solid foundation of what illicit drugs do to their body.

Especially, only 30% of students had heard about illicit drugs before, and 46% had not heard about them before receiving education. However, after five consecutive sessions, around 86% of students had heard, and none of them displayed that they had not heard of them.

Furthermore, only 15% of students were aware of illicit drugs before our education, and 46% of them were fully unaware of them. However, after our lessons, 79% of students knew what illicit drugs were, and none of them were unaware of them.

After accumulating all responses, I can conclude that the WISE Anti-Drug Curriculum is greatly effective in bringing awareness and learning the effects of illicit drugs.

WISE's Anti-Drug Curriculum

Lesson #1: Intro to Illicit Drugs & Their Effects

This session focuses on the introduction to illicit drugs, mainly on the effects and how they impact our bodies.

Estimated time: 30-40 mins

Click PDF download->

Lesson # 2: Intro to Legal Substances & Their Effects

This session focuses on the legal substances that are available to adults in America, and how they affect our brain and what they do to our body.

Estimated time: 30-40 mins

Click PDF download->

Lesson #3: How Drugs Affect The Way Brain Works

This session focuses on the neuroscience behind consuming drugs: the neurotransmitters, synapse activities, and the strong physical effects from these tiny particles.

Estimated time: 40-60 mins

Click PDF download->

Lesson #4: Vulnerability: Abuse & Prevention

This session focuses on the risk factors of drug addiction and the preventative tools that are available to teens living in the Capital Area (and New York State).

Estimated time: 30-40 mins

Click PDF to download->

Lesson #5: Drugs & Society

This session focuses on the effects of drugs in American society. It consists of the historical background of drug-related policies and the implications of the legalization of marijuana.

Estimated time: 40-60 mins

Click PDF to download ->

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Troy, NY, USA

Troy, NY, has a poverty rate of 23%, which is below the poverty line and twice the national average of 12.5%. Converting these statistics into actual numbers is equivalent to 10.9 thousand people being impoverished out of a total population of 46.7 thousand. A more alarming trend in the United States is the increase in adolescent illicit drug usage. According to the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 11.5 percent or 2.9 million adolescents were exposed to illicit drugs. The number excludes the use of alcohol, tobacco, and vapes, so it is expected that the actual data in 2024 may outnumber that of the report.

More importantly, research on the relationship between socioeconomic status and substance abuse shows that "among the principal risk factors reported in connection with drug consumption are: low educational levels, high rates of unemployment, dysfunctional families, and psychological and psychiatric problems". Accordingly, drug prevention education in Troy is very much needed.

Led 5+ hour-long educational sessions in the Troy Boys and Girls Club, where underprivileged students attend for an afterschool program.

Joined the Troy Drug-Free Community Coalition in 2024.

Attended the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) Youth Prevention Conference in 2024 and discussed how adolescent drug education can be revitalized.