The Town Journal, January 29, 2015

Early in February, Northern Highlands freshman Stephanie Reifman will bring fellow students a crash course in heroin addiction awareness.

Those in Upper Saddle River are familiar with her H.A.P.P.Y. (Heroin Addiction Prevents Peoples Years) Awareness Program, which saw great success last year and the young adult is looking to expand it further. With heroin and other drugs affecting more and more teenagers in the area, Northern Highlands officials were all to ‘happy’ to bring another education program to students – one designed by a student for students.

The Feb. 4 event will include a student-based seminar with a former drug addict and a parent who lost a child to heroin addition, as well as a discussion between the two guests.

Northern Highlands Asst. Principal Michael Koth said the school liked that the H.A.P.P.Y. program provides different insights into how addiction affects people.

“You have the user perspective and the parent perspective,” he said. “It brings it all together.”

Reifman agreed and said that’s what she hoped to do – show how it affects a person who is dependent on drugs and how it may affect his/her family and friends.

The program will start off with a video highlighting the general facts of heroin and narrows into the personal aspects of the addiction.  There will also be a survey to increase student knowledge about the dangers of heroin.

She said the program has come a long way from its beginnings as part of a Girl Scout Silver Award Project and her own way of working through the confusion of celebrity Cory Monteith’s death due to a heroin overdose. Reifman said as a fan of the show “Glee” in which Monteith was one of its stars, the loss was difficult as she looked up to him. But she also knew there was a life lesson to acknowledge and pass on to others – the devastating consequences of drug abuse.  When her H.A.P.P.Y. program premiered last year, she received a lot of support and good feedback, including that people hoped she would continue to bring awareness.

And so she did. Now as a high school freshman, she has a different perspective than when she was in middle school.  This program is reflective of high school aged issues and thinking. While the format will be very much the same, there are some changes planned.

“I still wanted to focus on making it a several day event because it is such an important issue.  It really needs a week of recognition,” she said.

Students will see PSA’s every-day of the week from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6, with the H.A.P.P.Y. Awareness Program premiering on that Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 7 p.m.

Another new feature is a parent guest speaker, who got in touch with Reifman after her first program. The parent will discuss losing a child to heroin. Reifman said the parent perspective wasn’t originally part of this year’s program, but his story, perspective and outlook changed all that and it’s now an integral part of H.A.P.P.Y.

“It showed how far this program can reach and inspired me to bring more exposure to this topic,” she said.

Read the full article in the Town Journal