The North Dakota State University Extension Service’s Center for 4-H Youth Development is collaborating with the NDSU President’s Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, Region V Children’s Services Coordinating Committee, Fargo and West Fargo public schools and North Dakota Higher Education Consortium for Substance Abuse Prevention to offer a program to help students and their parents plan for a smooth transition from high school to college.

The program, called Are You Ready? The College Transition, focuses on solutions for preventing problems during post-high school education. The program will help high school seniors and their parents:

• Understand and manage the normal conflicts that result from the high school-to-college transition
• Increase their communication skills
• Create a plan for the student to use when faced with these conflicts or issues

Program coordinators say that today’s high school senior is at risk for a number of mental and physical health problems when entering college. A recent survey indicates 52 percent of North Dakota college students binge drank in the two weeks before taking the survey and 4.6 percent seriously thought about suicide.

College counseling centers in North Dakota and across the country are reporting increased frequency and severity of students’ mental health concerns.

At the same time, the turbulent transition from high school to college poses challenges for parents trying to balance staying connected with their teens and letting go as their children take big steps toward independence.

The program’s coordinators hope to offer Are You Ready? The College Transition at 10 sites across North Dakota during the 2009-10 school year.

High school seniors and their parents will attend three sessions during the program, which the University of Wisconsin Extension Service created. The program’s authors will train local facilitators to teach the course.

Topics the facilitators will cover include:

• Best practices for academic success
• Financial planning
• Staying connected and letting go
• Making new friends while keeping old friends
• Getting along with roommates
• Dating
• Values
• Diversity
• Making healthy choices
• Stress
• Personal safety
• Alcohol and drugs

For more information on how your community could be one of the sites for this program, contact your county NDSU Extension Service office.

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