Students End Drug Adviser Training

Starting today, 13 undergraduates will have laminated signs on their doors that proudly read: “A DAPA lives here,”

As of a graduation ceremony this afternoon, the students will be qualified as Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisers, or DAPAs, following a 12-week long training course in counseling and intervention on alcohol and drug issues. In addition to the plaques marking their residences, the advisers will have their names and contact information posted on the University Health Services website for students seeking their help.

The training involved weekly two-and-a-half hour seminars which covered “Alcohol and the Family,” “Crisis Response, Treatment, and Follow-up,” and a special session on the chemistry of beer drinking given by Nobel prize winner Baird Jr. Research Professor of Science Dudley R. Herschbach.

Each seminar featured guest speakers, ranging from experts such as Herschbach to recovering alcoholics.

The DAPA program is the centerpiece of Ryan M. Travia’s first year on the job as Harvard’s director of alcohol and other drug services.

Travia described the role of DAPAs as “an ‘in-house’ resource at [the students’] disposal, who is willing to listen and respond to alcohol and drug-related inquiries.”

“We’re a non-judgmental resource, just straight facts—an unbiased resource,” said Amy R. Tao ’07, a Currier House resident who qualifies today as a DAPA.

She said that DAPAs will be directing students to resources which already exist but about which many are unaware.

“It isn’t abstinence and being uptight like that. We’re not judging, we’re there for knowledge,” said trainee Katherine L. Sancken ’09, who said she applied to the program because she saw the effects of drinking on school friends.

The DAPAs will promote safe drinking rather than teetotalism, the trainees said.

“It’s not [for] getting people into trouble, not like high school,” Sancken said.

Tao said the training included frank discussions about the trainees’ own drinking habits during the seminars.

Trainees also prepared on their own, each attending an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and doing around 15 pages of reading a week.

“But we read it for our own sake. We’d do it on our own,” Tao said.

The program emphasizes information and facts about alcohol and drugs—the DAPAs are now well versed in the science of dehydrogenase, blood alcohol level, and the AA’s 12 steps.

Sancken called the process “arming with information.”

Tao said that fellow students would feel most comfortable getting information from peers who are qualified and whose advice they can respect.

“I think the information is a big part in giving us confidence with being advisers,” she said.

The DAPAs also learned advising and counseling skills, as well as some first aid and how to intervene in situations where people seem dangerously intoxicated.

Despite the large commitments, students raved about the training process.

“It’s so fun! Ryan’s an awesome guy,” gushed Sancken.

Tao, a premed student, said that she wanted to become an adviser because of her fascination with health issues.

The program also trained students to deal with situations involving other types of drugs, but put the most emphasis on alcohol, the drug of choice for most undergraduates.

Travia brought the DAPA program to Harvard from Dartmouth, where he worked previously, although he said that the Harvard program was more expansive with a longer training period.

Dartmouth students said that the DAPA program had little impact at the New Hampshire school.

David Cao, a member of the Class of 2006 and the president of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity at Dartmouth, said that while he found Travia’s presentations helpful, the DAPA program itself played a small role on campus.

“I hope it will make a difference,” Sancken said.

“I look forward to continued collaboration in defining the role of a DAPA and assisting them in their efforts to make positive contributions to the Harvard community,” Travia said.

Travia said he plans to train another, larger group of students next spring, since he was not able to accept all those who applied this year.

—Staff writer John R. Macartney can be reached at jmacartn@fas.harvard.edu.