Holy Trinity Begins Program to Address Youth Issues

Holy Trinity High School has implemented a wide-ranging new program for the freshman class designed to address a cross section of issues confronting young people.

The “Believe in You” program promotes good decision making, communication skills, anti-drugs and alcohol, healthy relationships and the importance of individual differences along with conflict resolution, school officials said.

The interactive program, with students making inferences, role-playing and and making connections to the weekly objective of the lesson. The 10-week program attempts to incorporate the involvement of not just the student in their own character education, but the school, community and the parents.

Science and Health teacher Michelle Becker felt it was important to present this to the freshman class. “My goal was to prevent the freshmen from being tempted and to begin to believe in themselves enough to make the right decisions for themselves despite what their friends or peers think,” she said.

The students meet during their study hall once a week. There are cross-curricular activities for the other grades in English, Science/Health, and Social Studies.

So far, the reception by the freshmen has been positive, school officials said.

The program’s formal name is "Too Good for Drugs & Violence", which replaced the D.A.R.E. program. It was developed by the Mendez Foundation, based in Tampa, FL in the 1960's. 

The program’s founder, Charles E. Mendez, a Florida businessman, established the foundation to support local charitable organizations in the Tampa Bay area.  After his death, his son Charles E. Mendez, Jr., expanded the foundation's efforts towards addressing the growing and debilitating drug abuse epidemic facing our country's youth. 

The program began to take off and was renamed several times and piloted in different ways.

Holy Trinity High School is a private, co-educational Catholic high school founded in 1966 drawing students from Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties.  It has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education Exemplary Schools Program and is nationally known for its outstanding Academics, Athletics and Performing Arts programs.  For more information, visit www.holytrinityhs.org.