During the month of November, Harvard-Westlake was visited by Prevention Solutions.

Prevention Solutions specialists go to schools to “work alongside students, school staff, families and communities to build life skills that last—whether surveying attitudes and behaviors, implementing new programming, assessing effectiveness or promoting greater awareness,” according to their website.

They were invited on to campus to discuss drug use, effects, and safety with 9th graders. Such a lesson comes at an important age when people are especially susceptible to drugs. 

According to their lessons, at age 14 or 15, the mind is still developing but pressure can be strong to try new things. Prevention Solutions specialists say that’s why it’s so essential that we learn about the effects of drug abuse and how to resist peer pressure to try them.

FCD specialists stayed at campus for roughly one week, teaching their curriculum before departing in hopes that they would have a lasting impact on the student body. 

“I thought FCD preventions worked because they were amazingly cool,” Nathan Wang ’25 said.