Program instructs teachers on how to create a safe place for students

What if there were a proven method for reducing violence, drug abuse and drop out rates for kids? A method tested by two decades worth of real world practice?

There is. And Bigfork teachers spent the past three days learning it.

Two decades ago, Cheryl Watkins founded the non-profit Student Assistance International to save the life of one of her students.

"She was a straight A student carrying the world on her shoulders, with nowhere to turn," Watkins said. But the program Watkins developed to help address that student's problems worked.

"She's now a very healthy young lady in her community, making a difference."

According to Dean Pederson, who has worked with this program for 15 years, "It's just a safe place for them to talk."

To create this place, Pederson and Watkins first foster it among teachers and members of the community who take the course. Teachers begin the course by breaking off into groups, which are then divided into "diads," pairs that discuss their problems, their lives and how their day is going.

The groups break off into pairs several times so that each member of the group has shared a personal conversation with several other members. They then start a personal conversation amongst the entire group. This is what will be known to the school as a "student support group."

By being a part of one of these groups, participants learn how to facilitate them. In addition to learning to form these groups, students and community members who attend seminars given by Watkins learn how to identify different problems, like drug use and depression, among their students.

In school, there are many kinds of groups to discuss various problems. Groups can be formed that deal with chemical dependency, suicide, eating disorders, bullying and a variety of other problems. This is the fourth year that the program has been used in Bigfork.

Students can participate in support groups from kindergarten to their senior year in high school. The groups meet once a week, for one whole regular class period.

Students become a part of these groups, known as student support groups, in several ways. They can voluntarily enter one for their own reasons, a teacher or member of the community can refer them to a group, or students who have gotten in trouble can decrease suspension time by joining a group.

"Before we were just expelling these kids and they would get worse," Watkins said. "They would drop out, and then we'd get their kids the next generation. Now these kids are really changing - learning healthy ways to deal with their problems. These are kids we would have lost."

Pederson put it simply.

"Punishment doesn't work for addiction," he said.

But apparently support groups do.

According to information generated by the Idaho State Department of Education, which has adopted the student assistance program in all of its schools, 76 percent of students who participated in the program reported that they had stopped or decreased their use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.

The Sunrise School in Phoenix, Ariz., reported a 75 percent reduction in the number of fights, a 63 percent reduction in verbal abuse toward adults and a 57 percent reduction in overall disorderly conduct referrals.

The program works in part by helping students feel "safe and cared for," Watkins said. Also, both Watkins and Pederson said, the groups help to form a stronger bond among the students, between students and teachers, and among the teachers.

Watkins' program has been taught in all 50 states and in 30 countries, including Pakistan and Israel. Interestingly, she said that the changes in student behavior and the student reaction to the programs, measured by the percentages given above, come out almost the same whether she's teaching in Bigfork, Mont., or Karachi, Pakistan.

"We all suffer from the same things," Pederson said.

Pederson recalled one particular student he helped through this program.

The boy's entire family was "drug-involved" throughout his elementary school years. By the time the boy was a freshman, he had already served a year in juvenile detention. His two older brothers were in prison for murder. But Pederson managed to get him into one of his groups.

The boy stayed in for one year, eventually helping to run the group. He became an A and B student, and now has a wife and three kids.

"Every time he sees me, he gives me a big hug. He picks me up and tosses me around," Pederson said. "That's just one. There's lots like that."

Bigfork is the only school district in the state that has such a program. Bigfork Schools Superintendent Russ Kinzer worked at the Arizona school where Watkins first started this program 22 years ago.

"This program will save kids," Kinzer said, "it will save them."