More than 100 Oregon High School students gathered for an event organized by the school’s Advanced Placement psychology class on Friday, May 23.

As part of Oregon City Together’s “Resilience isn’t Born, it’s Built!” campaign, the event let students share with their peers what they do to be resilient on a large central banner in the school. Oregon City Together is the city and school district’s community coalition to combat youth substance abuse and provide prevention resources locally.

Students wrote examples of resiliency such as talking with friends, listening to music, spending time with their families and playing sports.

Oregon City Mayor Denyse McGriff, Police Chief Shaun Davis, police Captain David Edwins and school resource officer David Plummer joined the students in sharing their resilience stories as well.

“We were impressed with how the students helped each other,” said coalition coordinator Anne Haynes in a press release. “It’s vital for youth to have strong social, problem-solving and emotional regulation skills. In many cases, the best people to help students develop these skills are other students.”

The psychology class has worked with professional prevention specialist Nigel Wrangham to learn about individual and community risk factors. They have also created peer-to-peer situations for dialogue about substance use and mental health.

The resilience campaign was funded by an Oregon City youth opioid prevention grant awarded to Oregon City Together.

“Peer-to-peer campaigns like this one send a message that students are not alone and are in this together,” said Haynes in the release. “We hope to have funding from the city again so we can continue the campaign this fall.”

For more information Oregon City Together and the “Resilience isn’t Born, it’s Built!” campaign visit OCT online.