Eli Thomas, Levi Westberg and Oran Watts listen to a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper describe how a person unbuckled in the back of a vehicle can kill other occupants during a vehicle crash.
High school and middle school students from Green River learned that decisions like partying and inebriated driving can have lasting consequences at Life R U Ready last week.
Life R U Ready is a program funded by both cities as well as the United Way of Southwest Wyoming and the Sweetwater Board of Cooperative Educational Services that places teens in a simulation of a house party. After about half an hour the party is raided by police and the teens are handed consequence cards resulting from activities that commonly take place. For example, a girl may find out she was the victim of date rape after being drugged and resulted in her becoming pregnant, while another teen may find out he was killed in a drunk-driving crash.
While some would assume the students are being scared into corrective thinking, Shelly Richno, one of the coordinators for Life R U Ready says the program aims to show kids the real-world outcomes of some decisions and give them the ability to say "no" if they feel a situation is getting out of hand.
More than 350 volunteers throughout the community, including judges, morticians, law enforcement and community health workers set up multiple stations to show what could happen as a result of a few bad choices. The Wyoming Department of Transportation had a wrecked vehicle on display, while workers at the youth home and the Sweetwater County Detention Center had spaces dedicated to their services, showing teens what they could expect if they wind up in their care.
Richno said the program was set up in response to surveys showing Sweetwater County youth were ranked at the bottom of a state study for healthy behaviors and decisions. Richno said those statistics were reflected last Monday when volunteers asked Rock Springs seventh graders how many of them had attended a party where drugs and alcohol were available. Richno said nearly 30 percent of that group admitted to have attended such a party.
Richno said the students' are given surveys both before and after attending the program, as well as 45 days afterward to see how much of the information is retained. Additionally, students are given short text books and are assigned classwork related to the information presented to them.
Richno and other health workers in Sweetwater County hope students will use what they learned to make better decisions.
"We want to make a difference and we want to improve Sweetwater County's statistics," Richno said.
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