Friday Night Live groups from Summerville and Dario Cassina high schools debuted their “Escape Vape” project last Thursday through Saturday at the Tuolumne Youth Center.
The immersive educational experience consisted of three interactive escape rooms that were each aimed at helping young people better understand the harmful effects of vaping, cannabis and nicotine use.
“I believe it was effective at introducing a different concept for how we can engage youth in a way that allows greater retention,” said Tiffany Rizzo-Weaver, youth development coordinator for the Amador-Tuolumne Community Action Agency’s Friday Night Live program.
Weaver said more than 100 youth from across the county journeyed through the escape rooms, which each had a different theme:
• The Living Room — Acquisition: How youth access harmful substances at home.
• The School Scene — Distribution: Peer pressure, health effects and daily impact.
• The Waiting Room — Intervention: tools for change, hope and resilience.
Each of the rooms featured different puzzles designed by the Friday Night Live groups and their youth development coordinators that combined pop culture elements and public health data.
Support for the project came from ATCAA and its YES Partnership, a community-wide coalition founded in 1986 to prevent suicide, child abuse and substance use among the county’s youth, as well as the county Public Health and Tuolumne Park and Recreation departments.
Funding come from the Tuolumne County Behavioral Health Department.
The idea for the project was developed by local students while participating in workshops at the California Friday Night Live Partnership Youth Summit held each year in Los Angeles.
California Friday Night Live began as a state-funded initiative in 1984 to address alcohol-related crashes involving young people and has since expanded to address other issues that youth face.
Nicotine and tobacco use among youth has been a growing problem throughout the United States in recent years, particularly due to the rising popularity and availability of vaping products.
A recent California Healthy Kids Survey found that 7% of seventh graders and 11% of 11th graders in Tuolumne County said they regularly vape, nearly twice as high as the average statewide for both.
