At a glance
High school interns create safe spaces to promote wellness and help-seeking behaviors throughout their communities in Johns Creek, Georgia.
One Johns Creek Coalition
One Johns Creek is a Drug-Free Communities (DFC) coalition located in the vibrant northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Through its partnership with Pathways2Life, One Johns Creek (OJC) offers high school students one-year volunteer internships to educate, equip, and empower them to promote wellness and prevent youth substance use in the community.
Over eight weeks in the summer, interns learn about the public health approach, the Seven Strategies for Community Change, the Strategic Prevention Framework, and substance use prevention. During the academic year, interns participate in peer-led projects, including:
- Peer-to-Peer Education where high schoolers teach middle schoolers prevention lessons on opioids, alcohol, vaping, and mental health.
- Medication Safety, where interns participate in events and community engagement related to medication disposal, locking, and monitoring.
- Social Media Marketing, where interns develop the posting schedule and content for the @OneJohnsCreek Instagram handle to raise awareness around prevention topics, participate in skills building, and connect people to community resources.
So far, there have been three summer cohorts, the most recent of which included 19 students. There are two groups of interns—one group, the No Shame Interns, focuses on school-based initiatives, and the other focuses on the community setting. The No Shame Interns plan activities for their schools to roll out the campaign during the school year. The No Shame campaign focuses on raising awareness, building skills, linking people to resources, and providing safe spaces to ask for help.
In 2023, peer-to-peer interns modified the evidence-based curriculum from Operation Prevention with programming to engage their middle school counterparts. The expanded curriculum for the next school year includes content on vaping, alcohol, mental health, and shame/stigma reduction. The interns also developed a train-the-trainer model and educator guide for teaching the curriculum. As of October 2024, they educated 1,450 middle schoolers from three local schools.