Troubled Teens Resources

When most people hear teen crisis intervention their first thought is about teen age drug abuse. Teens are at risk of more than just drug abuse these days, suicide , physical abuse from a boyfriend/girlfriend, parent or other family member can lead to the need for a crisis intervention. The number of teen suicides and drug abuse cases is something parents need to pay attention to.

The warning signs of drug abuse are easier to see most of the time compared to more emotional issues a teen might be having. Every teen is different and each parent is different but, that does not change the fact that teens are at a greater risk for suicide and drug abuse. Most teens do not know how to handle some of the things that happen in life and they don’t know where or how to ask for help.

Parents can help their teen by just watching and listening to start with, let your teen know that you are there for them. Let them know if they mess up you will be upset but, that’s okay you will deal with it and move on. Parents need to set aside time to spend with their teens, find out who their friends are, what their teen does when their not around. Knowing your teen and who your teen spends their time with will give you the best view of your teen and what they are doing. Being involved in your teens life means more than making demands to know everything they are doing at all times or rummaging through their drawers. If you start with a solid base relationship where your teen feels they can come to you for anything, they are more likely to stay out of trouble, or if they do get into trouble your teen may trust you enough and come to you for help.

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The most powerful form of teen crisis intervention is when a former addict uses their life as a testimony to the power of choice and the possibility for change. In terms of intervention in the lives of those troubled teenagers that are caught up in gangs, it is extremely effective for them to hear from one of their own who succeeded in escaping gang life. Leaving drugs and crime is one thing. Leaving a gang is another proposition.

“…eventually the life of a gang member wore on him. And on his family. He tried leaving the gang, but leaving a gang is like leaving a cult, Lilly said. The members are brainwashed. One night, men jumped him and beat him for trying to leave.

“I had a blood clot in my head from the beating,” said Lilly, now 31. “My eyes were so swollen I couldn’t see.”

Through the beating and other incidents, Lilly saw his mother Janet’s disappointment.

“She came to the hospital every day crying,” Lilly said. “And she left every day crying. I realized I had to make a change. It’s a terrible thing to shatter a mother’s dreams.”

Lilly returned to running, an early passion in life. He did it minus the use of one leg, an old gang shooting had deprived him of his other one. He has gone on to become a world class athlete.

“Lilly is now a professional wheelchair racer and motivational speaker. He speaks to kids about the importance of choices.

“I tell them life is about what kinds of choices you make, and how your choices will affect you for the rest of your life,” Lilly said before the race began in Fairbanks last Friday. “I’m a living example of that.”

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It may very well be too late for any type of teenage crisis intervention for those juveniles who have committed crimes that put them in prison for most, if not all, of their lives.

There are those experts who maintain that an adolescent who murders or rapes is operating with a brain that has not reached full development, limiting their capacity for ethical reasoning. They feel these type of troubled teenagers are not adequately addressed by the current system of juvenile justice.

“In the first initiative of its kind nationally, Gov. Bill Ritter has created an executive clemency board exclusively for youth offenders, providing a possible way out of adult prison for teens currently serving life-without-parole sentences.

The former Denver district attorney signed the executive order Tuesday, establishing a seven-seat advisory board that will include members of his Cabinet, experts in juvenile-justice issues, two psychologists and a Denver judge, among others.”

Teens who have earned a life sentence rarely receive clemency. Some see this as a gross violation, arguing that teens, unlike adults, can be rehabilitated. There is no evidence offered to support that, but most see this measure as a step towards providing those teens a chance where now none exists.

“This is a more psychologically balance approach,” said Maureen Cain of the Colorado Defense Bar. “We’ve got to reach a balance in Colorado between retribution and forgiveness. To recognize that kids represent separate issues is very healthy.”

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Teen crisis intervention is usually not the purview of United Way. Long recognized for their work with the poor and homeless, the only contact they generally have with troubled teenagers is in that context. However, so impressed were they with the community’s concerns about drug addiction that they want to tackle that too.

“Brian Sipe, board president of the UWA, announced earlier this week that the organization would solicit proposals from nonprofit, governmental, educational and law enforcement agencies interested in garnering support for initiatives geared toward having a positive impact on substance abuse issues in Aroostook.
[…]
The UWA’s decision to gather the proposals comes on the heels of findings received from the organization’s first-ever communitywide assessment project… Substance abuse was tagged as a major worry for community members, according to the assessment. Respondents expressed anxiety about the toll drug abuse and addiction has taken on communities. They also feared newer, more dangerous drugs eventually would arrive…
[…]
“Everywhere we went, from the southernmost tip of Aroostook to the northernmost tip, we heard concerns about substance abuse,” Stevens, the executive director of the UWA, said Wednesday. “As a board, we read through the community assessment and we realized that there is a great deal of concern about this issue, but it is not something that we are really putting a lot of money into as an agency at this point.”

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Teen crisis intervention is hard to implement in a community where parents and citizens tend to be in denial. Wealthier communities may have a particularly hard time understanding that drugs and drug problems are no longer confined to certain demographics. Troubled teenagers come from both sides of the track.

And what is true in America is apparently also true in Great Britain. One mother, desperate for her son’s life, lashes back at her wealthy neighbors for failing to take the problem seriously.

“One local mother says it’s time for parents to wake up and realize all youths are at risk of becoming drug addicts.

Peggy Strife, who lives in a $400,000 home in a good neighbourhood, has been grappling with her 20-year-old son Brad’s crystal meth addiction for the past several years.

“I’m waiting for him to die,” said Strife about her son…Strife and her spouse lived through their own period of denial about what drugs were doing to Brad. She doesn’t want to see anyone else ignore the problem.

Strife disapproves of recent letters to the editor in the Herald where people have expressed opposition to building a youth treatment centre here.

“We have a high drug rate here and people don’t want to admit it,” Strife said.

When Strife was cruising the streets with a baseball bat, attempting to stop her son from finding and using meth, she rarely tracked down her son in areas like the West Flat, which she says tend to be associated with substance abuse issues.

“A lot of the houses I was at were on the East and West hills,” said Strife. She estimated that there were six youth drug dealers within a five-block radius of her upper-class home.

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Teen crisis intervention may amount to doing nothing at all. As we have all seen, a teenager hell bent on destroying their life does not take kindly to criticism or advice. Be it a teenager or an adult, an addict who hasn’t hit bottom yet is likely to keep on using until they do.

The troubled teenager who wrote the following seems to recognize the importance of consequences, even though he has yet to
hit bottom, he seems to understand that will be the only lesson he’ll understand.

“Don’t let your love and anxiety for me lead you into doing what I ought to do for myself….

Don’t accept my promises, I’ll promise anything to get off the hook. But the nature of my illness prevents me from keeping promises, even though I mean them at the time.

Don’t make empty threats. Once you have made a decision, stick to it.

Don’t believe everything I tell you, it may be a lie. Denial of reality is a symptom of my illness. Moreover, I’m likely to lose respect for those I can fool too easily.

Don’t let me take advantage of you or exploit you in any way. Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice.

Don’t cover up for me or try in any way to spare me the consequences of my drinking and using. Don’t lie for me, pay my bills, or meet my obligations. It may avert or reduce the very crisis that would prompt me to seek help. I can continue to deny that I have a drinking and using problem as long as you provide an automatic escape from the consequences of my drinking/using.”

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Teen crisis intervention, in one form or another, is a necessity for our nation’s youth. As recently released studies have indicated, the war on drugs is, at best, holding the line against the constant threat of illegal drugs but failing tho thwart the growing abuse of legal prescriptions.

Funding for schools for troubled teens,rehab programs and other juvenile programs is one of the biggest obstacles in obtaining help for teens at risk.Some of the most effective programs are locally grown and privately funded through businesses and a network of volunteers. So it is sad to read of an invitation issued for volunteer mentors and not one person in this small community responded.

“A call to help troubled teens turn their life around fell on deaf ears Saturday. Actually, it fell on no ears at all.

The Youth Hope Foundation and the Department of Juvenile Justice kicked off its Life Coach Initiative at Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church.

They hoped to sign up people to help mentor kids from the time they are detained until long after they are released, but no one showed up to volunteer.

“There’s a lot of kids that are alone on the weekends and nobody comes to visit them. They feel like nobody cares and no body wants to help them and what kind of message are we giving them when the community does not respond to an issue like this its like telling them we don’t care about you, just stay where you are,” said Susan Bowman.”

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Those teens and many parents who think any type of teen crisis intervention is overblown hype ought to spend a few hours reading the stories of teens who have lost their lives or sanity, or both, on meth. Teens are notorious for “knowing it all and one thing troubled teenagers will flatly declare is that they can’t or won’t get addicted - nope - never happen to them.

“I met a few guys that turned me on to some meth one night. I wasn’t afraid of it because I knew I was different. I have been through a lot in my life and was always was always
ok. I could use a little and still get my life together in Atlanta.”

But that is not how meth works.

“Addiction happens quickly.

Within days, all I cared about was more meth. I started shooting meth.
[…]
I hadn’t been in Atlanta six months and I went from a guy with $15,000, high hopes and plans to homeless, penniless, sick and begging for money from passersby. In the bitter cold nights I could usually call my parents or grandparents and talk them into a hotel room. They would beg me to come home and get well, but I couldn’t. I needed the meth.
[…]
Meth is a killer.It presents itself as your best friend, but quickly becomes the antichrist in your life. Once you’ve been there you almost can’t escape — I’m still not sure I’ve escaped.”

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He is still haunted, still pursued, still vulnerable. To this day the boy can not go back to Atlanta, the city he used in, for fear of triggering the addiction one more time.

Teen crisis intervention is very often conducted via community supported programs, school interventions and other efforts. Then sometimes, an intervention occurs one on one. Sometimes it is a story that turns teens at risk away from the temptation of drugs. Especially in a time when media and the culture suggest that getting high has no consequences.

The following is excerpted from a father’s post who wants very much to make an impact on the teens in his community.

“I heard the news Tony Parham had committed suicide, Then Howard Larsen tried to kill himself by jumping out of a car on the fwy, There were two more suicides that year. Monte Burlingame freaked out on acid. He was running in the middle of the street screaming …He was never the same after that.
[…]
Mark michaels was found attached to a Basket ball pole at the school one morning with one arm around the pole walking and spinning around and around he had been there all night. mumbling incoherently…

Mark Morisson was pulled over by the cops he had a bag on him. he swallowed it and started to fight with th cops, the bag broke and he died in Huntington Beach jail of a heart attack from all the Coke in his system.”

The parent is utilizing a website, Parent Team, that was created by a community of parents who are using every tool they can to stop the devastation teen drinking and drugging have wrought in their town.

“I’m here because I’ve been down your road and I know what’s coming around the next corner for you. There is a fatal wreck waiting to happen with your or some of your friends name in it.”

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Teen crisis intervention always seems to be the result of a grass roots effort by parents who simply can’t take it anymore. And though the internet is a great concern for most parents, it has also been an excellent way for parents of troubled teenagers to organize and communicate.That is how Parent Team was put together.

“On the fourth of July, Knee took her son to be tested at Chapman Medical Center and found five drugs in his system, $1,500 in his pocket and a pack of drugs hidden in their house.

Knee took action; she set up a Web site and began “Parent Team.”

The goal is to create a communication circuit and support system among parents to break down the teens’ network. “There are a lot of people who want to know what the heck is going on with our kids.”

Since the team’s first meeting in early July, the group has expanded to include Irvine and has grown to about 70 active members.

“You need someone who’s in your position,” Irvine Team Parent member Wendi Tyhurst said. “You need to be able to connect so you know you’re not alone.”

Parents have started posting on the Web site whenever they see suspicious behavior and possible drug dealers. They post license plate numbers and identify places they suspect have drug dealers. Knee calls this “intervention through communication.”

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Blogspot.com, WordPress.com are just two of many free sites where a parent can build a free blog in a matter of moments. If you want to be pro-active about teen drug addiction in your community, visit Team Parent and use what you learn to start one for your town.