Parents of Addicts Community Group
A safe group for Mothers and Fathers of addicts, where we can share feelings, and ask for feedback.
Hey all ~
I need your help. I was asked to be on a discussion panel at an Opiate Conference - regarding adolescents. I need to make a 20 minute presentation on "What the schools can do to help teens who may be using opiates or other drugs". Since I present (with my husband) drug education programs to parents at our local middle school ~ and since I've been a parent at the schools with a child with drug issues, I guess the exec. director at a local adolescent residential drug treatment center felt I'm qualified to speak on this topic and recommended me. From a parent's prospective I have some ideas but it is only coming from my own experience.
At the time my son was in school ~ there were few resources or help. Through my advocacy I've been able to make some changes (indirectly) at our local high school (where the problem rears its ugly head). Anyway, the problem with it coming just from my prospective is ~ it's only one view. Every school has a different way to handle situations. Some (although it's rare today) have drug counselors. Some have a resource officer or social worker. Some have mandatory drug education programs for parents. And others? I don't know.
If anyone can share with me ways in which you felt the schools could have helped your child more or ways in which the school did a good job of helping ~ that would be great.
Note: My main thought is to emphasize parent education. Some people seem to forget that we can be a great partner in all of this. Not many schools have drug programs for parents that I think would be helpful. For instance, in our case, the school principal's idea of a program was sharing the latest study and statistics on our children's risky behavior. The whole program was about % but nothing on what to look for or what to do if you should find yourself in that position. So when we were hit with it ~ we were totally unprepared. I was never touched with addiction or alcoholism before that time and if I was somewhat aware of where to turn ~ perhaps I might have been able to go to the proper resources immediately.
I need your help. I was asked to be on a discussion panel at an Opiate Conference - regarding adolescents. I need to make a 20 minute presentation on "What the schools can do to help teens who may be using opiates or other drugs". Since I present (with my husband) drug education programs to parents at our local middle school ~ and since I've been a parent at the schools with a child with drug issues, I guess the exec. director at a local adolescent residential drug treatment center felt I'm qualified to speak on this topic and recommended me. From a parent's prospective I have some ideas but it is only coming from my own experience.
At the time my son was in school ~ there were few resources or help. Through my advocacy I've been able to make some changes (indirectly) at our local high school (where the problem rears its ugly head). Anyway, the problem with it coming just from my prospective is ~ it's only one view. Every school has a different way to handle situations. Some (although it's rare today) have drug counselors. Some have a resource officer or social worker. Some have mandatory drug education programs for parents. And others? I don't know.
If anyone can share with me ways in which you felt the schools could have helped your child more or ways in which the school did a good job of helping ~ that would be great.
Note: My main thought is to emphasize parent education. Some people seem to forget that we can be a great partner in all of this. Not many schools have drug programs for parents that I think would be helpful. For instance, in our case, the school principal's idea of a program was sharing the latest study and statistics on our children's risky behavior. The whole program was about % but nothing on what to look for or what to do if you should find yourself in that position. So when we were hit with it ~ we were totally unprepared. I was never touched with addiction or alcoholism before that time and if I was somewhat aware of where to turn ~ perhaps I might have been able to go to the proper resources immediately.
If there's one thing that I wish the school would have done, it would have been to check the rest rooms more often. I eventually learned that my son was snorting morphine in the school rest room on his lunch break every day.
Our high school social worker was amazing. She helped convince my son to go to rehab and she worked with the rehab facility to make sure that he got school credit once he got there. The school also did everything they could to make sure that he graduated in spite of his circumstances. They helped us find on-line courses and changed his schedule around to make it more likely for him to succeed. Finally, they found him a job and gave him his final credit for his work experience. They even offered to give him an IEP that would allow him to work on that final credit until he turned 21. They were truly amazing.
I also let them know about a girl that was handing out morphine pills and selling Oxy and other drugs. She's the girl who got my son hooked. They passed the information on to the police, but they really couldn't stop her if she was too smart to get caught. It was very frustrating that she was actively getting kids addicted, right there in the school, with the school's knowledge, and there wasn't much they could do. (Part of the problem was that the girl's mother actually provided the drugs this girl sold, so the school couldn't call the mother.)
Other school districts won't even consider it ~ which I don't understand because these programs are not well attended. With prescription drugs overtaking our children - you'd think they'd be more proactive. So I'm thinking of contacting the schools who have adopted mandatory a few years ago to see if they noticed a difference in parents.
My husband and I present our programs (we do two a year for free) at our local middle school. For the past 2 years we've presented our fall program to 7th and 8th grade parents only. This year we decided to include 5th and 6th grade parents too. Our spring program we have 7th and 8th grade students with their parents. For most of the program the parents and students are split. This is our best turnout. I knew if we included the kids (extra credit pts.) the parents would be most likely to attend.
More definitely has to be done. Any other thoughts?