Equity
The easiest schools to start with are not the ones that need this.
A student-founded program in Los Angeles could get its first yes from a well-resourced private school in an afternoon. Those schools already have nurses, counselors, insurance, and families with the resources to respond to a crisis. Starting there would make the program easy and make it useless.
Priority communities
Boyle Heights
LAUSD public schools
East Los Angeles
LAUSD public schools
Huntington Park
LAUSD public schools
Panorama City
LAUSD public schools
These are high-need, high-Latino-density LAUSD communities where overdose exposure is concentrated and where school-based naloxone access, bilingual prevention material, and on-campus health staffing are thinnest. Reach into these schools is the first measure of whether the program is working — before session counts, before funding totals.
Language
Spanish-language curriculum, built not translated
A Spanish version of the session is in development. It is being written in Spanish for the communities it serves, rather than run through machine translation from the English deck — medical and legal content in particular does not survive that process.
The work is being developed alongside promotora health networks, community health workers who already hold trust in these neighborhoods and who know which explanations land and which do not. Partnership conversations are in progress; no promotora organization is listed as a partner on this site until an agreement is in place.
Status: in development. First Spanish-language sessions: [term/year to be confirmed].
Cost
Free at the point of delivery, permanently
Sessions and naloxone kits are free to schools and students. Because naloxone is sourced through the CDPH Naloxone Distribution Project, NEXT Distro, and LA County Substance Abuse Prevention and Control, there is no per-student cost that a school's budget has to absorb and no donor whose withdrawal would end the program.
Work in one of these communities?
School administrators, community health organizations, and promotora networks: we would like to hear from you.
Start a conversation