The Need for Diversion Programs

Well, for everyone listening, you’re on the Drug Prevention Power Hour. It is Monday. If you’re watching it right, we’re released and welcome to the show. I wanted to have Nathan on again because he was on another episode and it was so powerful and he cut it. What was cool is I think you teased about what we’re going to talk about today when we talked way back, but now you have some exciting information and some exciting things happening around this restorative program that you’ve been using. And Nathan, I want you to talk as much as possible because I’m getting over a little cold. you just take it away. No, I’m just kidding. But I’ll talk as little as possible. I want to hear all about this program and anything you can share about it with as far as restorative practices and what you’re doing out there.

Yeah, so first I’ll say like, think that diversion programs are very much needed in our schools. And I just I know that suspension and detention, just doesn’t work. We’re suspending kids, we’re sending them to detention in school suspension. And they’re coming back with the same behaviors. They’re coming back with the same actions, the same decisions and it’s not working. And so a few years ago, when I was with a coalition here in town, we worked on a diversion program with our school coordinator of health, with our juvenile probation officers, our SROs. We had the health department involved. It was this collaboration. was community collaboration is what it is. And I don’t even have the whole list to name everybody that was involved in this off. But if you’re going to do a diversion program, it has to be collaboration and do your best to include all 12 sectors in the community.

Do you remember how you guys got together? Were you already a part of an organization together and that laid the groundwork? Or did someone say, hey, we need you, we need you, because we got a problem?

So we were, mean, everyone involved was pretty much a part of the coalition, ⁓ but there were people that we needed at the table. And so we had to reach out and say, hey, we need you at the table. And then the other part of it was too, was we had to look at another diversion program to see like, hey, is this working for them? What’s working for them? What’s not working for them? Let’s take the good and let’s get rid of the bad, right? And let’s create our own program.

We created a four tier system, a four tier diversion program. And it’s been implemented for this. This was the second school year that it was implemented here in Rome County. And there were some other counties that I worked with to get it implemented in different areas of the state of Tennessee. so what we found out in that first year of having that program is that in middle school, we reduced the amount of vaping citations by over 62% from the year before. Yeah, it was huge and it was a huge win. And now there’s some things about data that I’m really picky about, right? So like one of the schools had zero citations that year. That doesn’t mean that kids weren’t vaping, right?

 Implementation of the Four-Tier System

So we knew though that they also had an SRO that was going between the elementary school and the middle school. So he probably wasn’t, or she probably wasn’t like locked into, hey, we’ve got this issue of vaping here at the school. We need to squash it. So they probably, that very small school, they probably went without getting any citations because they just didn’t have the consistency of an SRO there at the school. But the other schools, we saw great improvements.

And you know, we were even in that first year we were even a little bit worried because at the end of the year I Think nine students got caught in one school because they thought hey, it’s almost summertime. We’ve got two days left to school We’ll just bring our no one’s checking. No one’s looking well Part of the program and I’ll explain this in a minute part of the program was that we continuously reminded Teachers and principals and SROs. Hey, don’t let up on this like this is something that we’re trying to get rid of in our schools. Don’t let up on this. And they didn’t. So the four tier system, it works out this way. So if you’re caught the first time, you will come to a class on Saturday. any school can design this anyway. You can come, you can’t come. You have to come to a class on Saturday. You have to be in your seat by 8 a.m. Your guardian will stay with you for the first hour. They’re going to get the education as well. So they stay for the first hour. When you arrive, you pay a $25 fee. It’s not a fine. It’s a fee. That fee can be used to buy gas cards for somebody that says, hey, I don’t have the gas money to get to the to the class on Saturday. Well, no problem. Here’s a gas card. It can also be used to build quick kits for students. And so, you know, if they’re having trouble quitting or they’re having trouble not being able to leave their vape at home, you can take that money and build a quick kit form. So you have the $25 fee. There’s no referral to juvenile probation. The citation is written, but it’s held. And it’s held until that student completes the course. So it’s a four hour course. I do it in a workshop. I do a workshop, very active. Kids are moving around. They’re working in groups. They’re working together.

Some people just do it as a, we’re going to teach you for four hours. ⁓ Either way can work. Either way can work. I’ll be honest with you. I just prefer the workshop method.

Um, real quick, Nate, what was I’m intrigued by this idea of a quick, a quit kit. Um, what, is in a quit kit?

Understanding the Quit Kit

Whatever the student wants to put in it. So you can do a fidget spinner, you can do some gum, you can do toothpicks. Don’t really suggest toothpicks now anymore because now they have the nicotine toothpicks out. And so a student can put the nicotine toothpicks in the quick kit, they’re just getting nicotine the rest of the day. So it could be gum, could be candy, could be a stress ball. Some kids put a rubber band in there to just go like this. You know with it, just twirl it around. Just anything that’s going to help them concentrate and get their mind refocused off of that craving of nicotine. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, interesting. Okay, that’s cool.

So just to make sure that I’m on track with you too. you mentioned there’s four tiers and right now is the, if someone is caught using maybe there’s a citation at school or something and then it’s the Saturday, their parent brings them, the parent stays for the first hour, the students have to complete an additional three hours. And then are they absolved from the consequence, like that’s the consequence, correct? Right? That’s education, which is good. That’s way better than getting off of school. And the parents have some stake in it too, because they’re getting educated and they can become a partner in this decision to keep young people safe. And I probably understand like, this isn’t great too, because I think I was talking with you when it was like, dude, these parents are giving their kids vaping products. They’re giving their kids different substances.

Which is a big problem. So now they’re getting the information to and you know, at first I was like, are you kidding me? You’re giving your kid a vape? are you? And so I had to think about it for a little bit. you know, the marketing that the vape industry has used is it’s safer, right? It’s safe. It’s gonna help you quit smoking. So if I have a kid that’s smoking and I’m like, how do I get them to quit the vaping industry says this is safe and it’ll help my kid quit smoking, then maybe that’s an avenue I’m going to try because I don’t want them to smoke, right? Some just buy it anyways. It’s not a big deal to them. They don’t see the harm in it. But that’s the great thing about the class is in the workshop is that you have that first hour to present the harm, the danger in it for kids.

And I think it’s really interesting because a lot ⁓ of guardians or parents will walk out going, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this. And this was very informative. And now I have to change my mindset about this. And so that’s the great thing. And not all of them are like that, you know, but have had several say that when they leave. Yeah. Yeah.

The Role of Parents in Education

Okay, that’s cool. And is that tier one or what in the whole system? Okay, cool. Yeah. Tell me more.

That’s tier one. Yeah, yeah. That’s tier one. When they finish it, they just go back to their regular school. And they’ve not missed any classes. They’ve not missed any lessons. They’re still on track, right? And the citation gets tossed out. They don’t even go see the juvenile judge. Not a thing. No, there’s no probation. No juvenile probation, no community service.

No seeing the judge. All that is it’s diverted. We’ve taken you through this program. We’ve taught you. We’ve really stressed that listen, even if you can’t quit, do not bring this to school, right? We want you to quit, but do not bring this to school because what you’re doing is you’re interrupting the school day. Teachers lose instruction time. There’s additional admin stuff that has to go on like you are costing the school additional funds.

So that’s tier one. Tier two. So the interesting thing about tier two is if a student gets caught on tier one on Monday, right? They’re tier one Monday, they get caught, they go to the office, they schedule the class, it’s coming up Saturday. The student walks out of the class and they go, I’m already tier one, so tomorrow I’m just gonna bring my vape. What are they gonna do? Well, if you get caught tomorrow, you’re on tier two. You skip tier one.

You don’t even get to go to that Saturday class as a tier one student. You will go as a tier two student. So what happens on tier two? Tier two is you come back to the class, you pay the $25 fee again, you have to be in your seat by 8 a.m. If you’re not in your seat by 8 a.m., you are not allowed to take the class and you go to the next tier. So, seat by 8 a.m., your guardian stays the whole four hours. They’re gonna get the whole education with you this time. You do get a citation. You’re going to get a citation. You’re going to get 10 hours of community service and you’re going to get two days of in-school suspension. After those two days, you go back to your school. The great thing is we didn’t do this the first year, but and some schools don’t do it and I really suggest that that schools do this. So when somebody gets out of jail, there’s a there’s a program to where like somebody will kind of walk along with them as they leave jail, right? And help them get a driver’s license, help them get to their probation appointment, right? Somebody doing that for them. If a school goes, if a kid goes to in-school suspension, when they go back to their school, there’s a volunteer or somebody in the school that walks along with them and says, hey, this is what you missed on day one, this is what you missed on day two, we need to get you caught up.

We wanna make sure that you’re gonna be successful when you come back because we know that stress causes bad decisions, right? For kids, they make bad decisions when they’re stressed. So they don’t have good coping skills. So I really suggest that if anybody implements this program that you have somebody volunteer that’s going to meet with those teachers and say, does the student need to know when they come back? So we can prepare them to be the most successful. So they who’s the likely volunteer for that?

Community Involvement and Stakeholders

Sometimes it’s a counselor. I’ve even seen like the secretary at the school, know, the one that sits up front and answers the phone, it’s them because they’re like, they’re the first point of contact and they know all the kids and they usually have a good relationship with them. You know, so it’s like, that’s a great person. Sometimes it’s a librarian, you know, just, whoever feels like they can handle that and not.

not overwhelm them, because we know teachers are overwhelmed, then that’s who’s going to do it. It just depends on what the school has available. And again, not every school does it, you know, because they can’t. And that’s difficult. But if you want to set the student up for the best possibility of success, you have somebody like that. Reentry program, that’s what the jails call it, the reentry program. So you have somebody working reentry at the schools.

Cool. Okay cool. That’s cool. Yeah.

Yeah, so Tier 2, you get the 10 hours community service, you get the $25 fee, you get the in-school suspension. Once you complete the class, as long as you complete the class the second time, we’re going to take that citation and we’re going to push it to the side and you’re not going to go see the judge. You’re just going to work with juvenile probation on completing your 10 hours of community service. That’s it.

You’re not going to have to go stand in front of the judge. This also frees up a lot of the judge’s time. Our judge was bogged down with vaping citations. And this program really freed up a lot of the caseload that was coming to him. Still, there’s still juvenile probation issues, but it really smoothed things out for our juvenile judge here in Grum County. Yeah.

Okay, that’s fascinating to think because I only thought of the school staff as the stakeholders who are like, we need to do something about this because I can’t do my job. I’m just dealing with all these citations, but I didn’t even think about it being a legal issue, right? Is that the judge would also have a lot of stake in this. That’s really important.

Who was also at the table for our meetings about this? We wanted to make sure that we were bringing everyone to the table that had some type of stake in this. And we knew that the juvenile judge, it’s something that we had heard from him before, was it’s all I see. And that’s an exaggeration, but when you see citation after citation after citation on vape devices, that’s how you’re going to feel.

Like this is all I see, you know? So he was at the table, juvenile probation was at the table, the health department. We even had our emergency room. We had a representative from our emergency room at the table because we wanted them to talk about some of the health effects on the lungs and be able to really kind of guide us and walk us through that because at the time we weren’t really 100 % positive or sure.

Policy Changes and School Board Approval

What was happening to the lungs. This was 20… I mean, I guess the info was out there, but we wanted to hear it from a nurse. We wanted to hear it from somebody that worked at a hospital. This was 2023. Yeah, 2023. 2023, 2024 school year. So we had them at the table. We had the SROs at the table. Our school board was at the table because they were going to have to change the school policy.

The school policy at the time was just like, hey, you can’t bring tobacco. And if you do, you’re going to in-school, in-school suspension. the new policy is, is this tiered system. This is what’s going to happen. and so they had to change that policy. The interesting thing was when we, when we built this policy together as a team, we took it to the school board and we were like, this is going to be a home run. Right. And we took it and they were like, no, we don’t like it. We want we want more consequences. And we were like, Hey, okay. All right. So on tier two, we didn’t we didn’t initially have the two days of in school suspension built in. We still had tier two as there’s no in school suspension. There’s no detention. This is one more time, right? Well, they wanted they wanted in school suspension built into on tier two. So that’s, that’s what we did. And then interesting.

Yeah, we took it back to them and they approved it. No problem. So.

Okay, so is the tiered system based on how many times they’re caught? Like if you once it’s tier one, if you’re twice it’s tier two. Okay. I’m, I’m, my gosh, now this is like a drama. I’m like, what could possibly, what could be three and four? I don’t want to go through tier two. Like the class sounds fun. Cause I get to hang out with no Nick Nathan and I get to do a class and learn and stuff.

Understanding the Tiered System of Consequences

My parents are gonna be mad because they had like I they got to give up an hour on a Saturday, but ⁓ Tier two is like shoot I got to really get stuff together because there’s a little bit of money involved I got ten hours of community service. I got two days out of class. My friends are gonna ask me about it What’s three and four about?

Yeah, so Tier 3, there’s no class. You don’t get to come to class. You don’t get to be a part of that. Tier 3 is you get the citation. You’re going to go see the judge. And we’ve tried. We’ve done our best to help you avoid that, to keep you out of that system. But you’ve made the decision to keep doing what you’re doing. I will tell you this, Jake, in the three schools that I’ve done in the past two years. We’re adding four and five next school year out of the three schools. We’ve only had two students hit tier three in two school years. yeah, so we know that just the consequences alone are keeping them from making the same decisions over and over again. So tier three is you go see the judge. You get your citation, you go see the judge.

You can receive up to 50 hours of community service, which if you hit tier three, he’s going to hand that out. 50 hours of community service, up to, I think it’s up to $150 in fines plus the legal fees. And, and then you get three days of in-school suspension. So you’re only getting one more extra day of in-school suspension. So we’re, we’re trying not to overwhelm them with being out of school.

The whole point of this was to keep kids in school because we know that if they leave for five days, they leave for three days even, they’re losing progress and that stresses them out. And then again, we have the same decisions being made. ⁓ So that’s really tier three is that we don’t have anything to do with it. We’ve done our part, we’ve tried. This is all now SRO, juvenile probation, juvenile judge.

And whatever nonprofits offer community service out there. Those are the ones that are going to be involved. By the way, I should say this. One of the things I suggest is like if you have community partners that are nonprofits that are like a free medical clinic or maybe like free dental services or a food pantry, on those Saturdays, leave enough time for 15 minutes to introduce them to those students and those families that may be tier two, because providing those resources will also help reduce stress for the family, which also helps them make better decisions. So that’s something that we did in the second year in Roan County was we had some people coming after the class, 15 minutes before the class ended to say, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do.

Community Support and Resources for Students

We also, if you couldn’t come, we also had flyers and brochures for people that said, hey, if you need any of these resources, here’s some information. This is where they’re at. Give them a call on Monday. It’s huge for families, especially when you live, like I live in a rural area. And so the resources here, we have so many resources and we want families to know about them, but some of them, you know, they just don’t know. And so that was one more way we could reach those families and say, hey, yeah, yeah.

That’s really cool, Nathan. Dang.

Peer Support and Recovery Networks

And is that so I’m gonna do a quick plug was a gosh, this is a long time ago now. There was a group called Full Circle that was on the podcast a long time ago. they’re in some big cities right now, but what I know is really cool is like, if I’m listening to you, Nathan, and I’m like, this is very thorough. I can take some notes. Maybe I can implement this. And Nathan, I know that you actually help consult on these kinds of things too. It’s like they can talk to you about it. But what I’m thinking too is like, well, Nate, what if I don’t have the capacity to do this? And there are groups like, for example, these coalitions that people are a part of, the school system might be really supportive. And then even these recovery groups, like you’ll be encouraged by this man, full circle was a peer-led recovery network where the students came together to support each other. And they have like after school clubs. So yes, you go to the class, but then, well, hey, you need to surround yourself by some people who aren’t using. Great. They have this hangout spot with pool and ping pong and basketball and music. And you’re in this cool, healthy environment and your friends get it, right? Like they also used to vape.

And they get the craving, right? You’re going to get that peer support, which I think is so cool. That’s next level, right? I want to talk to you in five years and you’re like, yeah, dude, we got this going on. There’s student involvement in all of this. You’re on groundbreaking things because everyone’s wondering, how can I develop an effective diversion program or restorative program because I’m realizing that the punishment alone does not actually fix anything. This is cool.

Yeah, you know, whenever, when I was a kid and I would get caught smoking at school and I would get detention, when I went to detention, I was with all of my friends that smoked. And we would just make plans for the weekend. What are we doing on the weekend? Okay, we’re going to have a party. You know, like you’re just putting me into like general population, know, like to use prison terms, you’re using me in, you’re putting me in general population and that’s where I want to be. Those are my people.

You know, and then if I got suspended, perfect. Because my mom and dad weren’t home. They were at work. So perfect. That’s where I want to be. This program eliminates that. It takes the majority of that out of the picture. I’m sure that you still have to suspend students. I’m sure that some will probably be expelled. you know, that’s going to happen, right? But for the majority of the students that go to this program, they’re not hitting those risk factors.

They’re getting more protective factors through this program than anything else. so, and that’s the key, right? More protective factors, you know, that’s gonna help them. So, go ahead.

Yeah. So to, agree with you a hundred percent. And I want to make sure I don’t forget where we’ve been. The tier three part, the first two involve the class. If the student is caught again, you’re kind of like, Hey, well, you had a chance with the classes and stuff like that. Now there’s actually going to be a consequence. There is a, like, you got to show up to the judge. I have that conversation up to $150 of a fine, and then you could also have up to 50 hours of community service. What’s Tier 4 about?

Implementation Challenges and Stakeholder Engagement

Yeah, so and I will say this too on tier three. On tier three that $150 fine, that’s specific to my county. Other counties have different freedoms and so if the judge can do more or wants to do more on that fine, that’s his prerogative. So I wanna make sure that I mentioned that and I will say this too.

There was a school that heard me talk about this and they went and tried to implement it without all of the information. And it just backfired. And they ended up calling me and going, hey, can we hire you and bring you in to help us walk us through this? And I was like, yeah, absolutely.

Well, I bet there’s so many stakeholders that you have to educate along the way and intricacies to how you explain this to certain parties to get buy-in because you, I don’t know how long it took y’all to do this, but now that you have done it, you could mess around with this for probably two or three years and then maybe it fizzles out because there’s no momentum versus, like how, actually how fast did it?

What’s the process from that meeting you’ll had until you started implementing? I’m curious about that.

Four months, because we, yeah, we started working with a school that was doing a diversion program about 50 miles from us. And so four of us, was the coordinator of school health, our health department, myself, and then our trauma-informed school coordinator. We all went to this other school and looked at their program. And then we knew that we had to change the school policy. We had to work on that. And so that was done over the summer, over summer break. And so once that school policy was changed, we could implement at the beginning of the school year. So it was about four months. And there was a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings. And it was bringing different stakeholders into those meetings and saying, you know, this is what we’re doing. This is the plan. This is how it works. What do you think?

By the way, another stakeholder that was in some of those meetings was a student who had been caught vaping before, who had quit vaping, but we needed a student to be at the table to say, they’re not gonna go with that, right? Like they’re not gonna enjoy that or they would enjoy that and we don’t want them to enjoy that. We had to have the youth voice as part of those meetings.

That’s good. And the right student, by the way, right? Not the student council president or the star athlete who is not using, but the one who this program is designed for. That’s so good. Okay, hold on, before I get too excited and ask you to go to number four, why in a couple bullet points, why did that program not work with the other group that tried to do it? You know, just like taking little points. So that was something that we did and try to slide it over to their community. Why do you think it didn’t work the first time?

No collaboration. Nobody knew what was going on. So they didn’t go talk to the SRO and say, hey, this is, we need you at the table. They didn’t talk to the health department and say, hey, we need you at table. They didn’t talk to the, like really talk to the principal of the schools and say, hey, this is what we’re doing. And there was no, there was no, so the schools that I work with uses a Google form. So when a student gets caught, they fill out the Google form you know, what time they were caught, where they were caught, what grade they’re in, what tier they’re on, what day the class will be. And there’s some other information in there as well. And so there was no tracking system, there wasn’t any of that. And so when you don’t have, number one, if you don’t have collaboration, it’s just not gonna work. It’s just not gonna work. ⁓ Because everybody, you know, when you talk about the 12 sectors in coalition work all of those sectors really need to be at the table because they all have a part in this. They all do. Parents have to be involved, right? Like you have to have parents at the table because they have some insight, especially those who have been through it before. They’ve got some insight on what you’re trying to plan. There may be some things. The other part too was when we did the first policy change here in Rome County, we had our county executive look at it to make sure that we weren’t doing anything unconstitutional. So again, you just try to implement it and it’s like, okay, but no. Like there’s a process.

Yeah. No, Nate, I don’t want to do that. I just want to make a Word document that says the four steps and I want to send it to the principal and the school board and all them and just have them get it. know, let’s do that. my gosh.

Well, right, yeah, yeah, they’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, you know, so, so yeah, that’s, that’s, and I think sometimes, you know, that you hear something, you get excited, and you’re thinking that’s gonna fix it. And then you run with it, but you really need there’s a whole process to this and it takes time.

Well, and the cool thing about it is like the results speak for themselves at the very, at the very least, right? Like that 62 % of incidents at schools, they’re being reduced every year. Again, like you mentioned, it doesn’t mean that they never use and that would be great if that were the case, but just that alone, freeing up educators time, freeing up the judges time, the students are in a healthier environment. There’s less disruptions and peer influence around maybe negative behaviors. And you gotta also believe that that’s good, that they’re not using it in school. That’s another safe place. for anybody who’s like, I’m sure people are thinking this, well, did they quit? What’s the long-term effects? We won’t know for a while, right? Like this is a new program, but I wanna congratulate you because being a part of this thing in Rome County with you and all your peers out there for doing that. That’s a big milestone. And we’re getting close to having a longer episode. Here’s what I’d love to end on. Give us the little tier four and then please tell us how to get in touch with you if we’re like, Nathan, I need to learn the process because maybe this process defines a different outcome in their community, but at least you’ve done it before, you know?

Consequences of Tier Four and Final Thoughts

Yeah. Yeah. Tier four is you go see the judge. You get 45 days of in-school suspension. We’ve done everything that we can. We have had the judge send a student to the juvenile detention center just to say like, hey, you’re messing around with your life. And these are the like, you turn 18, it’s different. You break the law when you’re 18, it’s completely different. And so they that’s one thing they did. We’ve only had one student hit tier four in all the schools that I’ve been in.

Okay. Okay. And did you say four to five days or 45 days in school suspension?

Yeah, 45 days. Yep. Yeah, yeah. And here it’s an alternative school. So you go to a completely different building and do your sentence there. ⁓ So yeah, so people can find me, ⁓ nathanrespeaks.com. It’s W-R-A-Y, nathanrespeaks.com.

45 days, a month and a half of in-school suspension. Wow. Okay. All right.

You can email me, nathan@nathanreeseeeks.com. I’m on Instagram as noniknate, Facebook, noniknate. So you can find me just about anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.

Yeah. And I’ll put in a plug if you want to hang out with No Nick Nate, we’ll be going on the Prevention Innovators cruise together in April of 2026. By the time this episode goes out, I don’t even know if there’s going to be tickets available. So you better, if you’re listening to this, go on prevention. Right. Yeah. I think right now, like we’re starting at 50 spots and once they sell out, we’re going to try to get more, but we’ll, we won’t know what happens. So, you want to cruise with, with Nate and learn some more. We’ll get a lesson in the hot tub about diversion programs. You know what I mean? No, no, I had to do a quick plug for that dude, cause we’re, working together on that. You’re always doing incredible stuff, Nathan and I, I love catching up with you and you, we share so much just in like the love for this field and come on.

Thanks, man. Our passion for helping others. So I just want to say thank you for all the sacrifices you make to make this your career and figure it out. And then for everyone else, I say this a lot, but your role is so important. Nathan, you’re a great dude. Will you please sign off by giving them some parting words of wisdom or guidance or inspiration, and then we’ll see them next time.

You know, take those good risks. You know, this program was a risk for our community and it was a good risk. Take those good risks. Rest. Take time off. Don’t answer text messages when you’re not working. Don’t answer your emails. Detach from the job. I don’t want you to burn out. You know, we need you out there. And for the people listening,

You’re doing incredible things. You’re doing incredible things and make sure that you still celebrate those small victories because the small victories are the ones that lead to the major victories. You’re definitely building up those small victories any time you purposely create connection with intention because that creates prevention.

Ooh, what’s it? my gosh, mic drop. Y’all, I cannot say it better. That’s nonicknate, go to nathanray.com. That’s W-R-A-Y, nathanray.com. Hit him up and we will see you next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.