Published: Thursday, October 11, 2012 1:09 AM CDT

Just months after being hired, the new drug and alcohol counselor for the Yankton School District (YSD) has already made significant impacts.

Tiffany Kashas, who was hired as the counselor by Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health Service (LCBHS), came to Yankton from the University of South Dakota (USD) where she had served as coordinator of prevention services and a staff counselor for about four years.

Her job at USD focused on prevention-related activities, along with doing some chemical dependency assessments.

Officials at YSD hope Kashas will help curb drug and alcohol use in the school district which increased substantially last year.

“Kashas has been available from day one of school as a resource person for our students and parents,” said Yankton High School (YHS) principal Dr. Wayne Kindle. “I know our students and parents appreciate having a valuable resource like her at our school. She is available for us to use at any time if the need arises.”

Some components of the new drug and alcohol prevention program at YSD includes designing alcohol, drug and tobacco curriculum aimed at helping students resist pressures to use substances and correcting perceptions about them; a parent program that includes parental education and informational meetings; individual and group counseling; and school-wide activities and promotional materials to increase the perception of the harm of substance abuse.

Officials chose the program after finding out how much success it had in the Sioux Falls school district.

“Some of the goals of the program are to build a rapport with students, staff, parents and the community,” Kashas said. “We also hope to increase awareness about drugs and alcohol and how they affect us as humans.”

She added that students appear to be responding well to the prevention education series curriculum through great discussions and the learning they have done.

Funding for the counselor came from the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Block Grant, which runs year to year. However, officials are optimistic that the funding will be available for years to come.

“The counselor has been working at YHS and YMS with the current drug and alcohol policies in place at the schools,” said Dr. Tom Stanage, CEO of Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health. “This has been a very positive process for Lewis and Clark and YSD. We need to see more of these kinds of things in the community.”

Already this school year, there has been six drug and alcohol incidents at YHS, after 12 all of last year.

“We continue to be concerned when we even have one incident at school. Our goal is to eliminate any incidents at school and to also guide our students in making better choices outside of school,” Kindle said. “However, we can’t do this alone. We need the help of our community and parents. We all need to work together like we have in obtaining the counselor.”

There are many long-term goals of the program that officials hope to fulfill in the future.

Those goals include delaying adolescent’s initial use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; decreasing their use of those substances; increasing students’ perception of their harm; changing adolescents’ norms and expectations about substance use; building and enhancing social and resistance skills; and changing community norms and values regarding substance abuse.

“We hope to accomplish the goals we have through our curriculum, school-wide activities, individual meetings, phone calls and emails to students and parents,” Kashas said. “We will also be working with a team of key stakeholders within the community. As a team of key stakeholders, we have already built many partnerships to build a tight safety net to provide resources and support to students.”

She added that programs like this can help foster awareness, education and opportunities for discussion around unpopular topics of alcohol and drugs for students and parents.

“My hope is that people will consider thinking about their options, respond rather than react, before making a decision — whatever that decision might be,” she said.

Kindle said that one of the biggest impacts he has seen the program have is the positive reaction that students, parents and community members have shown to the district for recognizing the problem.

“Equally important for me is that we have not buried our head in the sand or tried to pretend we don’t have problem when we do,” he added. “Above all other things, we are doing something to help our students and parents.”

“This whole process has been nothing but positive,” Kashas added. “Positive responses from parents, students and staff as well as positive partnerships within the community.”

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