Schoollaunchesriseaboveclub
New group aims to address student addiction and help them overcome ‘past hurts, current habits’
Harold Ferguson High School’s newest club is aiming to tackle the difficult discussion of student addiction and past issues in a positive light; one that focuses on solutions, not consequences.
The Rise Above Club, which has been in the works for just under a year between the school and its Loveland Police Department school resource officer, launched at Ferguson in September. The club brings together Ferguson students to discuss their addiction or substance abuse issues or any past problems that are still impacting them.
Doug Savage, LPD officer and the school’s SRO, said the idea came about as discussions around student addiction would come up in talks he was having within the school and with his fellow SROS.
He said as he continued to get to know the students at Ferguson and the kids he covered, he saw addiction and substance abuse as a common theme but a lack of resources for students suffering from addiction.
“When I had in-depth conversations with them … I learned this was a deeper thing,” he said. “This isn’t all just ‘I’m smoking because I think it’s cool,’ it was really starting to be an addictive issue for these kiddos.”
The club, once it began, started to attract students from around the school to come and talk about what they were dealing with. As the group met every Tuesday, some were drawn in with the promise of free lunch (be that a Subway sandwich or Chipotle feast) and were drawn into the focus of the group — discussion and healing.
Krissie Lockard, the teacher in charge of the group at Ferguson, said the group functions as a melding of teaching and discussion, with some days being a chosen lesson and other days being free for students to speak their mind. She said teachings in the group have been pulled from multiple different addiction or healing programs and all discussions, Savage said, do not leave the room.
Keysha Martin, dean of students, said in an email that the club is a student-focused and staff supported
group allowing students to come in and “overcome past hurts, current habits and rough hang-ups they can’t just seem to get over.”
“It’s education and exposure to a different way of thinking about addiction to help us realize that we CAN rise above our hurts, habits and our hang-ups,” she wrote. “Learning how and what we think about our vices, and what we are really trying to avoid by using them in the first place and why our brains keep bringing us back to that place.”
Dylan Brady, a 17-yearold senior at Ferguson, said Savage approached him last year about starting the club. Brady, who has his own history of substance abuse and the criminal justice system because of it, said just for him the club has helped to bring clarity in his life.
He added he has seen kids come through just looking for a free meal who get pulled into discussion, ultimately empathizing with their fellow classmates’ struggles.
“It is a really beautiful feeling to be around, especially considering when Savage approached me last year, I wasn’t in a very good state of mind in what I was doing to myself,” Brady said. “This has probably been the most gratifying thing for me, because out of all of it I know the motivation behind it isn’t to make money or to do anything aside from help people early on so we can stop problems from growing and prevent them from being something that can destroy multiple people someday; (to) blow out the fuse while it is still burning.”
While the club is open to Ferguson students who want to come and talk, it is also being used as an alternative sentencing for those students arrested and charged with substance related crimes.
Judge Geri Joneson said Savage approached her in August about the court becoming involved in the project; sentencing students to the club. She said once she heard the objectives of the project, the number of kids interested and the convenience of doing it, allowing students to do it in their own school rather than traveling to a facility for another program, she was on board.
Since then, Joneson has sentenced students to this program as a way to address what they are going through, usually for a set number of sessions.
“Regardless of if they have drug or substance issues, there is always some underlying reason why they are acting out or having bad behavior,” she said. “That is what Doug’s group will do; try to recognize those issues, address them and give the kids some tools they wouldn’t normally get.”
All involved, from LPD staff to the court to those at Ferguson, have agreed that the program is truly something special and a way to really impact students for the better.
Lockard said she would love to see the program spread out beyond just Ferguson to help students all across Loveland. She said having a child in the eighth grade, she knows the importance of making sure this teaching and discussion is done even at younger levels.
“It would be really nice to see some of that teaching happening in sixth grade because that is where these addictive behaviors are beginning,” she said. “That is where (these) anxiety and poor coping skills start. It would be really nice to see these kids learning better habits and better skills to deal with stuff instead of just avoiding it.”
“This club is changing the lives of our students and staff and has the potential to reach students before the hurts, habits and hang-ups get too far out of control,” Martin wrote. “With the local community providing support, the school providing a safe space for kids to connect and our students and staff trusting each other through connection and sharing, The Rise Above Club is doing just that. Rising.”
While many involved point directly to Savage as having led the charge on the project, he said it was a group effort to put it all together. He said it is incredibly important as students, especially high school students, are in a very important decision stage of their life.
“If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got,” he said. “I am looking for a way to break that cycle for our kids. There are so many of our kids who get involved in whatever their habit or hang-up is because that is how things are in their family or that is how their friends do it. If I can throw in something to change course a little bit … then it’s a win.”
Brady agreed with Lockard, saying he thinks it is important this discussion is an open and honest one to try and help kids while they develop, adding “everyone is a victim to it at some point, whether it is second hand or not.” He said putting that awareness in students heads can have a great impact.
“To have this has changed my life,” he said. “I feel like it would do a lot for different