The two Chatham-Kent Secondary School students joined several classmates in completing a two-day training session Thursday to prepare them to speak to Grade 8 students, through the Challenges, Beliefs and Changes (CBC) program, on how to deal with the pressures they will face.

Stead, 16, said if she had known what to expect when starting high school, "I would have been a lot less nervous about things like drugs and alcohol.

"The fact I could help people learn about drugs and alcohol before they get to high school, so they will know how to handle it, I thought that was really interesting," added the Grade 11 student.

Violot, 17, believes the anti-drug and alcohol message has more impact coming from high school students than an adult.

"It doesn't really work, because some of the kids hear that from an adult and they think . . . 'They don't know what it's like to be a teenager,' " said the Grade 12 student. "They can relate to us more, they know that we've just went through some of the experiences they went through."

Violot said, "we're giving them everything from how they're going to be perceived if they're going to use drugs and alcohol . . . how it's going to affect their grades, how it's going to affect their schooling."

The CBC program is a partnership between the Chatham-Kent Police Service, Lambton-Kent District School Board and Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit.

CKPS Special Const. Charlene Mitchell said, "peer-to-peer education has proven to be very effective in substance abuse education and prevention."

She said the program began last year at Tilbury District High School, where student leaders went to speak to Grade 8 students at feeder elementary schools in Tilbury, Wheatley and Merlin.

Mitchell said a survey was taken and more than 91 per cent of Grade 8 students responding said it is more effective to learn from a peer than an adult.

The CBC program was created by the Parent Action on Drugs (PAD), which has been in schools across Ontario for the past 15 years, she said. The PAD group provides a trainer to work with student leaders on speaking with elementary students, she added.

Mitchell said it is an interactive program where student leaders spend most the day at the school talking openly with Grade 8 kids about such topics as the truth and myths about drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, as well as share experiences and play interactive games.

CKSS and TDHS, along with student leaders from John McGregor Secondary School, Ridgetown District High School and Blenheim District High School, are taking the program to their feeder schools this year.

Mitchell said PAD trainer Patricia Scott-Jeoffroy told her Chatham-Kent has the highest number of schools participating in a single board anywhere she had taught the program across Ontario.