National Drug Take Back Day is April 27, 2019.
Below are three super easy ways afterschool programs can help promote prescription drug safety to prevent accidental overdose or prescription drug misuse.
1. Connect with Community Partners
Drug take back events are held in partnership with law enforcement, anti-drug coalitions, and community-based organizations such as United Ways, YMCA, and Boys and Girls Clubs.
Connect with your local community partners to ask if they are hosting a drug take back event and ask for materials to share with parents of afterschool kids.
If your community is not hosting an event, visit www.CountItLockItDropIt.org to find a drop off location near you. We made this handout for you to fill in the location of the nearest place to your site for adults to take back prescription drugs. You can also visit
https://takebackday.dea.gov/ to locate a site this Saturday. Please call ahead if you can, to confirm the location will be open on Saturday.
2. Share Information with Parents and Caregivers
Each year more than 60,000 young kids visit an emergency room because they got into medicines when parents or caregivers were not looking. In 2017, more Tennesseans died from drug overdoses than car crashes.
Help raise awareness of safe storage practices and ways to prevent prescription drug misuse.
- Safe Medicine Storage for Parents from UpandAway.org
- Fact Sheet: Preventing Teen Prescription Medication Abuse from DrugFree.org
3. Do These Generation Rx Activities with Kids and Teens
- Up and Away (for grades K-2) – This coloring book illustrates for young kids the importance of only taking medication that is given by an adult, while also integrating parent tips for safety.
- Generation Rx for Elementary Students (best for grades 3 – 5) – Activities may be completed as standalone activities or paired together for a longer lesson. Included are “Medication Safety,” “Candy or Medicine,” and “Good Choice or Bad Choice” games. Each activity has a facilitators guide and supplemental worksheets.
- Generation Rx for Teens – These highly interactive videos, games, skits, and activities may be completed as standalone activities or part of a larger lesson unit. Included are “Champions of Rx,” “Lead the Scene,” and “Plot Twists.” Each activity has a facilitators guide, worksheets, and videos.
Sources:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PROTECT Initiative: Advancing Children’s Medication Safety, https://www.cdc.gov/medicationsafety/protect/protect_initiative.html
- Partnership for Drug Free Kids, https://drugfree.org/
- Tennessee Department of Health https://www.tn.gov/health/news/2018/8/20/tennessee-deaths-from-drug-overdoses-increase-in-2017.html
- Up & Away is an initiative of PROTECT in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). https://www.upandaway.org/
- Generation Rx, https://www.generationrx.org/