Her Message Resonates

10/2/2024

Brenda Conlan doesn’t lecture, preach, or pontificate, though she has the experience and credibility to do so.

Instead, the Cape Cod-based prevention specialist, who has visited Collegiate twice annually since 2000, speaks to 7th and 8th graders in a manner they understand and find relevant.

That’s the way, she says, that she can most effectively convey her ever-salient lessons to impressionable youngsters who live in a complex, confusing world in which stimuli fly at them from every imaginable angle.

“I focus on the triple crown, which means alcohol, nicotine, and marijuana,” she said. “My main message is to postpone their use of alcohol until they’re adults so they can get their emotional lives and their skill set together and to avoid other drugs, obviously, because they’re harmful and unsafe. I try to do that in a fun way with conversation, videos, and PowerPoints that I’ve developed to help the kids feel like they can ask questions and share in the class.”

Conlan long ago became like one of the family. A teacher before she ventured out as a prevention specialist in 1994, she brings a wealth of knowledge strengthened by research and life experience, shares it freely, and plays a significant role educating students, parents, and faculty about real-world challenges. Her arrival, then, is much anticipated and her presence much appreciated.

One recent morning during her eight-day fall stint on North Mooreland Road, she shared thoughts about her calling and her observations about Collegiate.

Your message always seems to resonate with our students.

Part of it is, I’m not in their life normally. I’m not their teacher. There’s no grade. I’m not their parent. I don’t have any disciplinary role, and I’m also very honest about my own relationship to the topic. I’m very frank with them about my family problems [when I was growing up]. I think that helps them relax and understand that we’re going to have a real conversation and that they can ask questions and be open.

What are you comfortable with sharing publicly about your “relationship to the topic”?

I let them know that I grew up in an alcoholic home. I started drinking alcohol and using illegal drugs when I was 12 and quit when I was 17. I didn’t quit using tobacco until I was 25, and I really make a point of that. It took me eight years to get off nicotine because that, in my opinion, is the most addictive substance on the planet. I’m almost 60, so it’s been a long, long time since I was involved in any substance abuse myself, but I think that helps make them feel like I’m a real human being and I’m coming at them from my vulnerabilities rather than my authority and expertise. I think that makes it a more open conversation.

Why did you choose to become a prevention specialist?

Before that, I taught English as a second language and German as a second language in Germany. I decided to move home, and there just was not a big demand for German teachers. I knew someone who was working for FCD (Freedom from Chemical Dependency) doing prevention work in schools. I worked for them for five years until I branched out on my own. When I was a teenager, there was no meaningful conversation with adults about substances. I mean, zero. I think that’s changed, which is great. Schools are doing a much better job. Parents are doing a much better job, but there was such a void in my life when I was growing up when it came to these kinds of things. That shouldn’t be.

Over the years, you’ve talked about myriad issues. What’s your focus now?

Recently, I’ve narrowed the focus. The news is good. Kids are using fewer drugs, and they’re actually using later if they are using. What worries me is now we have drugs in candy form. Back in the old days, if you used drugs, you smelled. If you’re a cigarette smoker, you smelled like smoke. If you’re a marijuana user, you had to smoke it. Even if you smoked outside, when you came into a room, you smelled. When somebody’s drinking, you can smell alcohol on their breath.

Now, you’ve got nicotine products that you can vape, you can use as gum, lozenges, toothpicks. There’re these little ZYN packets which are pouches of nicotine that you use the way people would use chewing tobacco. You tuck them into your mouth, and they sit on your gum, and the nicotine seeps into your bloodstream.

So there’re all these ways to use nicotine that taste good and don’t involve smoke, so kids think they’re harmless. And marijuana. Right? You’ve got edible marijuana in chocolate bars, baked goods, candy. They’re really strong and have serious side effects. Drugs look clean to kids these days. They don’t look as dirty and threatening, but they’re very powerful and can cause all the same problems.

What’s your biggest concern now?

What worries me generally now is that social media is so intense and overwhelming and constant. Personally, I don’t want to spend my days watching these rubbish videos that kids can watch. Of course, I know what all these drugs are. Drugs haven’t really changed. It’s repackaged or presented differently, but it’s the way it’s being introduced to this generation in a very fun, funny way.

What do your instincts and experience tell you about Collegiate?

Collegiate’s a very healthy place. Definitely. I feel that intuitively being here and spending time with the people here. My intuition is that Collegiate is a very healthy place, a nutritious place. The data backs it up as well. The School does a lot of internal surveying. It also backs up that the [Middle School] people I’m working with are under national levels in all substances: nicotine, alcohol, other drugs. So, I think Collegiate is doing great. My job is to help you stay that way.

~Weldon Bradshaw

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