Boys & Girls Clubs is committed to expanding high-quality health promotion programming throughout Nevada. As the opioid epidemic becomes pervasive in the Nevada communities that Clubs operate, youth increasingly become victims. The most vulnerable stages in a young person’s life are the academic transitions from elementary to middle school and middle to high school. During these times, substance misuse among youth increases the risk of academic under-achievement, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and depression. Focusing on the highly-impressionable ages of 10 to 15 years old, Clubs deliver health promotion programming, empowering youth to build skills to address real-world problems in a manner that is holistic, youth-led, adult-facilitated, project-based and active.
In February 2024, Boys & Girls Clubs entered into a multi-year partnership with the Fund for Resilient Nevada to deploy a statewide opioid abatement and prevention program. Boys & Girls Clubs opioid prevention initiative has three goals 1) increase the knowledge, coping and resiliency skills among 2,971 youth ages 10 to 15 years old in 34 communities through the implementation of the SMART Moves curricula; 2) prepare 75 program staff as responders to opioid interventions and referrals; and 3) reach 320 families with important opioid-intervention and prevention resources.
