What is the RAVE (Reduction and Awareness of Vaping and E-Cigarette use) Initiative?

RAVE focuses on power-sharing with youth to increase the number of students in Rice County who choose not to vape. The initiative is funded by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health.

Find us on TikTok (rc.rave), Instagram (@rc.rave), and Facebook!

Questions?
Email: info@healthycommunityinitiative.org

What We Do

RAVE seeks to amplify and center the voices of young people. Our student leadership team is made up of middle school and high school students from Faribault and Northfield.

We strive to educate our team members and the greater youth (and adult) community on finding, building, and maintaining healthy relationships, knowing the difference between positive and negative peer influence, understanding and labeling emotions, knowing the effects of nicotine and commercial tobacco use on someone’s physical and mental health, and building positive coping skills.

Our leadership team is spreading the message that punishments for vaping don’t work as a way to help young people stop vaping. When teens get caught vaping or smoking by an adult (parents, school staff, administrator), they face a consequence — maybe their phone is taken away at home, or they’re suspended from school. This harsh reaction might cause more stress for the teen, and the stress might make that person want to vape more as a way to relieve this added stress.

We see vaping as a coping mechanism for a bigger problem, not the problem itself. We want people to focus on finding the root of the problem instead of punishing students for doing the activity.

Why We Do It

RAVE believes it’s best practice to amplify the voices of young people, facilitate and create space for authentic youth leadership, center an identity-forward and whole person approach in our prevention and intervention efforts, and find the root of the problem for why young people choose to vape instead of punishing students for doing the activity.

Why Is it Best Practice?

By creating the RAVE team, we are trying to model authentic youth leadership. Authentic youth leadership works to combat adultism (the prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people), improve young people’s self-perceptions, and support young people in caring about their community, all of which act as protective factors against substance use disorder and addiction.

For more about why engaging youth authentically is best practice for substance use prevention and intervention, please see Reducing Vaping Among Youth and Young Adults.