Recently, talks have been given on campus about healthy relationships. These conversations are necessary to promote good decisions among young adults. The group leading these discussions is the Fontaine Center.
Speaking with Director of Student Services and Upper School Councilor Bob Sears, I learned more about the involvement of the Fontaine Center and how they participate from campus.
“The Fontaine Center is part of the University of Georgia Health Center. It specifically deals with health and wellness as it relates to drugs and alcohol and the prevention of sexual violence,” says Sears.
Sear’s elaborated on how Athens Academy came to form this relationship with the Fontaine Center.
“Many years ago their first involvement at Athens Academy was speaking at evening presentations to the freshman and sophmores. We used to do these things called safety nights. That had to do with making good decisions as it related to drugs and alcohol.”
The Fontaine Center now does a multitude of talks on campus, ranging from drugs and alcohol saftey to the recent relationship talks.
In addition to giving talks on campus, the Fontaine Center authorizes and licenses the Everfi alcohol education programs required in Freshman Seminar. This program, which is a necessary part of the ninth grade curriculum, procides the steps for students who will be entering the world, even if it can seem intimidating to students.
According to Sears, the programs are a building block to future success after graduation.
“One of the reasons that we like having them talk to high school is because they take what they see in college, and come and say ‘hey, we can help high school students have healthy relationships early on’ because what they see at the college level is that there are a lot of unhealthy relationships and loneliness in the college population because students never learned how to have genuinely healthy relationships. So that’s why we are doing this relationship focus, based on what they are seeing at the college level to stop it at the source.”
Ultimately the messages do resonate with students and can guide them to make good choices in life. The Fontaine Center has been an instrumental part of helping Athens Academy build programs to promote good choices and will continue to be a partner for the foreseeable future.
