BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Before administering this lesson, it is recommended that instructors review the following:
- The Facts. Your Future. Curriculum Approach
- The Facts. Your Future. Scope and Sequence
- The Facts. Your Future. Substance Use and Abuse Curriculum Teacher Guide
- The Facts. Your Future. Drug Facts for Instructors
An outline of Lesson 2: Building Coping Skills is provided below and includes a downloadable Instructor Guide and supplemental activities to complete the lesson.
Lesson 2: Building Coping Skills
In Lesson 2, participants will learn that healthy coping strategies can help to build resilience, while unhealthy coping strategies create risk for long-term harm. As participants begin to think about what is important to them and how this impacts their personal boundaries, they will also learn about refusal skills to help them build the confidence to hold to healthy boundaries and avoid risky behaviors, including opioids and other drug use.
Instructor Guide
The Instructor Guide provides a detailed lesson plan and instructor script for all of Lesson 2.
Downloadable Instructor Guide
Lesson 2.1: Overview
Lesson 2.2: Resilience
In this section, participants will be introduced to resilience and that it is a skill that everyone can learn.
Lesson 2.3: Stressors
In this section, participants will learn about everyday challenges
called stressors. These stressors can be internal or external.
Participants will consider how they respond to the everyday stressors in their lives and examine whether they are healthy or unhealthy responses.
Your Response Tendency Worksheet
Lesson 2.4: Coping Strategies
In this section, participants will dive deeper into healthy and unhealthy coping strategies. Participants will develop their own coping strategy toolkit to give them immediate access to ideas that can help them respond to everyday stress, develop boundaries, and build the refusal skills needed to resist risky behaviors such as using opioids and other substances.
Lesson 2.5: Boundaries
In this section, participants will learn how to identify and set personal boundaries – another important coping strategy. They will begin to make the connection between their personal boundaries and refusal skills and learn the importance of practicing what they will say or do when faced with situations that challenge their personal boundaries.
Lesson 2.6: Refusal Skills
In this section, participants will apply what they have learned so far when confronted with a personal boundary violation. They will learn the importance of identifying what is important to them, practicing refusal skills (bold refusal skills), and sticking to their boundaries. They will learn how to make this easier by identifying what is important to them.