Community & care
Prevention - Tobacco & Vaping
Say It With Music helps schools and coalitions counter peer influence with Music STEAM Recording Programs where students write and produce their own vaping- and tobacco-prevention messages in song, supported by our interactive Psychological Effects of Music SEL books and assemblies that build decision-making, self-awareness, and healthy choices. The SEL assemblies have been described as fun AND life-changing and transformational. Many directors use the Music STEAM Recording & Team Building Programs to create a song and music video for tobacco and vaping prevention campaigns.
Programming of this type may align with allowable activities under CDC and state tobacco and vaping prevention funding, state tobacco settlement and tax funds, and Title IV-A; organizations may also explore local prevention funds.
FAQs
Straight answers.
Schools, districts, and coalitions searching for vaping prevention programs for schools, youth vaping prevention programs, tobacco prevention programs for youth, and anti-vaping campaign ideas often want an engaging, youth-driven way to counter peer influence and reinforce healthy choices. Say It With Music supports tobacco and vaping prevention by giving students a creative, music-based platform — through Music STEAM Recording Programs, SEL School Assemblies, and SEL supplemental books — to produce peer-to-peer messaging and awareness content while building decision-making, self-awareness, and communication skills. SIWM does not claim to stop youth nicotine use or guarantee outcomes; it provides youth engagement activities and awareness-campaign support that can complement evidence-based tobacco and vaping prevention curricula and school prevention programming.
SIWM offers Music STEAM Recording & Music Video Programs, SEL School Assemblies, and Psychological Effects of Music SEL supplemental books that schools and coalitions can use within a broader tobacco and vaping prevention strategy. Students create music and video content and participate in structured SEL activities that reinforce healthy decision-making and resistance to peer influence.
SIWM supports tobacco and vaping prevention by engaging youth in creating their own prevention and awareness messaging, which can make campaigns more relatable to peers, while reinforcing the decision-making and self-awareness skills associated with healthy choices. It complements, and does not replace, evidence-based tobacco prevention curricula.
Youth-created content is often more persuasive to other young people. In SIWM’s Music STEAM Recording Programs, students write, record, and produce songs and music videos that can anchor a peer-to-peer anti-vaping or tobacco-prevention awareness campaign, giving prevention staff an engaging alternative to traditional messaging.
The Psychological Effects of Music books reinforce self-awareness and decision-making — skills tied to resisting peer pressure and making healthy choices. They serve as a supplemental resource alongside a tobacco or nicotine prevention curriculum.
Yes. SIWM programming can be tailored for middle school and high school students and delivered in schools, afterschool programs, and community settings, in person or virtually, and can support youth-led awareness campaigns.
Organizations commonly investigate CDC tobacco-control funding administered through state health departments, state tobacco Master Settlement and tobacco-tax funds, FDA youth tobacco-prevention efforts, and, in schools, Title IV-A safe-and-healthy-students activities. Availability and allowable uses vary by state; SIWM would be positioned as a supplemental engagement and awareness-campaign resource.
Most youth tobacco/vaping-prevention dollars flow to state health departments and their local grantees and coalitions. An organization would ask its state tobacco-prevention program or coalition whether a youth-created awareness campaign and SEL engagement resource is an allowable use of those funds.
How this program runs
Same SIWM work. Built for Prevention.
Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.
Aligned with prevention priorities by strengthening protective factors, positive decision-making, healthy coping and peer connection. Youth use music and media to develop prevention messages while building SEL, leadership, resilience and community awareness. CASEL 5 SEL competencies; SAMHSA prevention framework & protective factors; trauma-informed, strengths-based practice; National Core Arts (Music/Media Arts).
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The Psychological Effects of Music
SEL books & curriculum
SEL books by Ava Johnson plus keynotes for the same rooms.
Ava the Aviator
Keynotes & assemblies
Interactive talks on the science of sound and the psychology of music.
The studio
Recording & music video program
Participants write and perform. We record, produce, and film.