Vaping

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU) prepared a comprehensive School-Based Vaping Prevention, Cessation and Enforcement Package to support the school community in addressing the current challenges regarding student vaping.

The comprehensive package includes:

Prevention and Education Supports

Not An Experiment

Not An Experiment is a comprehensive vaping prevention, education and cessation resource that offers:

Not An Experiment is currently working on adding information on:

  • Mental health, the developing brain, alternative ways to cope with stress
  • Refusal skills
  • And more

Curriculum Links
Some overall and specific curriculum expectations have been outlined for Not An Experiment's Grade 7 and 8 lesson plans. However, educators can use or adapt website and downloadable content to suit the needs of grades 4 through 12.

Protective Factors
Factors that make a person more or less likely to use substances appear long before substances are used. The school community can play a positive role in helping to prevent or delay young people’s substance use by supporting their healthy physical, mental, and emotional development.

It is no longer recommended to approach substance use prevention from a “just-say-no” or a risk-reduction approach alone. Beginning at the junior kindergarten level, focusing initiatives on the promotion of protective factors like the development of healthy relationships, a strong sense of self, and community connectedness shows promise in preventing or delaying substance use.

Parent Outreach

The EOHU offers Conversation Starters About Vaping parents can use to guide discussions with youth about the effects of vaping.

Not An Experiment offers a PDF Parent resource (found under the educator tab) and a complete Parent page.

The EOHU is available to support, to present to, or to meet with parent groups (such as parent councils, interested or concerned parents) within school communities. Support offered by the EOHU can be adapted to the situation, depending on the needs and availability of the group. Reach out to schoolinfoecole@eohu.ca to request support.

Did you know?
You can play a positive role in helping to prevent or delay substance use by supporting your child or adolescent's healthy physical, mental, and emotional development. MyTripleP.ca can help.

Increasing Educator Capacity and Optimizing Interventions

Trends among young people are constantly changing and the world of vaping continues to evolve rapidly. To provide students with relevant information and to intervene in appropriate ways, it is important for educators to keep their knowledge related to vaping up to date. For this reason, the EOHU offers schools and educators the support of subject matter experts who can:

  • Provide tailored one-time or ongoing support (questions/answers, intervention techniques, etc.)
  • Provide access to available resources (activities, training, tools, etc.)
  • Share knowledge and useful references (best practices, studies, research, etc.)

The EOHU also offers Conversation Starters About Vaping that educators can use to guide discussions with students about the effects of vaping.

Support offered by the EOHU can be adapted to your situation, depending on your needs and availability (staff presentations, one-on-one support for educators, virtually, in-person, etc.). Reach out to schoolinfoecole@eohu.ca to request support.

Student Engagement

Workshop
The EOHU offers a student workshop to groups of students engaged in a project or initiative dedicated to vaping prevention, education, or cessation. By the end of this workshop, students will:

  • be informed about
    • basic information (what are vapes, the act of vaping, ingredients)
    • health effects (what we know so far, smoking vs vaping, nicotine)
    • the industry (target marketing, critical thinking, how the law applies to you(th))
  • be familiar with common and non-stigmatizing language to help facilitate productive conversations throughout their project, initiative, or group effort
  • be empowered to address vaping through peer-to-peer activities

Q&A Session
The EOHU can facilitate Q&A sessions with students on the topic of vaping. Q&A sessions are offered within a structured approach that includes a set pre-session education and post-session topic engagement facilitated by an educator (i.e., school staff).

Note: Evidence suggests that education provided to young people via stand-alone presentations or demonstrations by guest speakers who do not hold a continued supportive role in the lives of these young people has very limited impact in achieving behaviour change relating to health. In place of delivering stand-alone presentations to students, the EOHU recommends educators facilitate an engaging activity:

Cessation Intervention Supports

Youth Cessation

The EOHU offers supportive cessation coaching for students in schools that are engaged in a comprehensive vaping prevention, education, or cessation project. Cessation coaching is intended for students interested in reducing or quitting vaping. Support offered by the EOHU can be adapted to your students' situation, depending on their needs and availability. Reach out to schoolinfoecole@eohu.ca to request support.

Strong Recommendation: Trained Staff
Caring allies can play a key role in supporting youth to quit smoking or vaping. The free Quash Facilitator certificate training equips educators or other school staff to deliver a cessation program to students in their schools. Learn more.

Mindfulness Can Help

Cravings are a normal part of abstaining or quitting. This is the brain asking for nicotine to feel good or even normal. There are many ways to cope with cravings. The following mindfulness resources can help.

Educator and Administrator BCI (3As) Training

When a student vapes on school property, it is important that an educator or administrator intervene in an appropriate and supportive way. For this reason, the EOHU offers school administrators and educators a tailored Brief Contact Intervention (BCI) training based on the 3As framework: Ask, Advise and Act.

The 3As framework guides interactions by laying out the steps an adult ally can take to approach students and address their use. The 3As provide an opportunity for students who vape to think about quitting or reducing and be referred to appropriate supports.

Reach out to schoolinfoecole@eohu.ca to request this training.

Youth BCI Tool

A Youth Brief Contact Intervention (BCI) toolkit for vaping cessation using a 2-step framework has been developed by public health experts from Ontario’s public health units and the Lung Health Foundation. This resource compliments the EOHU’s educator and administrator BCI (3As) training. The toolkit includes a worksheet, poster, Powerpoint presentation, recorded presentation, videos and more.

Self-Directed Learning for Adult Allies: Supporting Students in Their Vaping Cessation Journey

The EOHU offers a self-directed learning experience for adult allies, like educators or administrators, who want to support students in their vaping cessation journey.

Referral Options

If a student is interested in quitting vaping, they can be referred to:

Self Help Counselling Support

Posters:

Tear-Off Pad (Print):

Progressive Enforcement Supports

Administrator Tools and Infraction Reporting

Tools available to communicate rules and expectations

Infraction Reporting

When a staff member witnesses an infraction on school property, a School Infraction Report and Witness Statement may be submitted.

  • School Infraction Report 
    • On this form, complete the fields.
  • Witness Statement
    • On this form, the witness must include:
      • Date and time of incident
      • Details about where the incident took place
      • The names of the students/people involved
      • Detailed evidence of smoking or vaping

If you witness a smoking or vaping infraction, or the sale or supply of tobacco or vapour products on school property, please fill out both forms above and send them by fax to the Eastern Ontario Health Unit at 613-938-9707 (Attention: Executive Assistant).

Other questions regarding enforcement may be sent to: sfoa@eohu.ca.

Parent Outreach

When formally communicating with parents regarding a student vaping on school property, it is recommended that messaging be concise and address:

  • where one can and can't vape
  • that one can't supply a youth with vapour products

Should parents be interested in more information on vaping, schools can direct them to the EOHU's Conversation Starters About Vaping and Not An Experiment's Parent page.

The EOHU may issue a letter to parents/guardians.

Syllabus for In-School Suspensions or Assignments

Below is a list of resources (syllabus) schools can use to support students with educational content following a Smoke-Free Ontario Act incident. A subject matter expert at the EOHU is available to go over and discuss these resources with school staff or administrators.

Some may find it useful to use Google Forms to create a learning module based on the content of resources listed below. With Google Forms, you can, for example, have a student watch a video and then answer some comprehension questions afterward. Here’s what a form would look like when students load it.

The syllabus is a collection of resources intended to offer the student an opportunity to learn, to reflect, and to be connected with supports.

Opportunities to Learn:

Opportunities to Reflect:

  • Quash offers a Why Quit? page with points of reflection for youth who vape: feel better, save money, take back control.
  • Ontario Tobacco Research Unit’s Nod from 2050 is a website that encourages youth to reflect on their long-term goals around vaping nicotine. They can send a virtual postcard to celebrate the younger self who decided to quit vaping.

Connection to Supports:

Board/School Sample Policy

A draft sample policy is available upon request to guide boards and schools who are interested in adopting or adapting a policy to address vaping on school property.

The EOHU offers schools the support of subject matter experts who can help tailor policy options to your school's situation and needs. Reach out to schoolinfoecole@eohu.ca to request support.