Troubled Teens Resources

Something parents never imagine doing is raising their grandchildren. But teen age drug abuse doesn’t live in a vacuum. Often irresponsible behavior results in “unwanted” children that the teen can’t possibly raise. Who does? You do.

When addictions started in youth continue into adulthood, marriages fail, addictions escalate, and there seem to be more and more grandparents planning how to raise a second family than planning for retirement.

“In Wisconsin, one in 10 grandparents will be the primary caregiver of a grandchild at some point in their lives, according to the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren….
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Across the country, the number of children living with grandparents with no parent in the household has grown 51 percent from 1990 to 2003, according to a UW-Extension publication on “Wisconsin Families: Issues and Demographics, Grandparents Caring for Grandchildren.”

“I think the use of drugs and alcohol, incarceration and mental health issues are all adding to that,” said Claire Culbertson, Caregiver Program coordinator for the Area Agency on Aging in Dane County…”

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“That’s why we nipped it in the bud,” Karen explained. She had just finished months of research into girls boarding schools for the next school year. Karen was very frightened that she’d be in the same position as her older sister whose daughter started using drugs as a high school freshman and was pregnant by her sophomore year. Abortion was not an option.

“I can see the writing on the wall, Karen fretted. “She gets absolutely worthless counseling at school, unless it’s from her drug friends and there are too many drugs at her school. I can’t fight this alone. At boarding school she has a fighting chance, but not in this school system.”

Don’t run the risk of ignoring your troubled teenagers self-destructive behavior. Too often the results last far longer than the span of their teen age years.

Teen age drug abuse never looked so good now that the current crop of young Hollywood teens are seemingly intent on spotlighting advertising their version of it. The lovely chalet, pictured here, is where those who can afford it go for “rehab” and is rumored to be where young Lindsay Lohan is.

“According to sources within the facility, the 21-year-old star arrived this weekend to begin the intense rehabilitation program that is expected to last a minimum of 30 days….upon check-in, a thorough mental and physical examination is completed. Once assessed, clients go through a traditional 12-step system and experiential therapies

The Lodge was named by Town & Country magazine to be one of the country’s top rehabs. For a price tag of $30,000 and up, the rehab offers privacy — with rooms for 16 residents at a time. The Lodge boasts spectacular views of mountain ranges and waterfalls; Jacuzzi tubs and private fireplaces, horseback riding therapy, massage therapy, hydro therapy and even a hair salon with manicures!

But that’s not all. The Lodge even owns a helicopter called “Rainbow” and arranges “heli-hiking” tours, and features gourmet meals prepared by culinary school graduates. There’s also a sound stage that was once the home of the “Donny and Marie” show, which now houses the most effective challenge ropes course in the world.

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It really doesn’t matter if it is luxurious rehabs or bare-bones boot camps, what guarantees any troubled teenagers‘ success in kicking is to bottom out, re-evaluate and recognize the severity of the problem. Without that, neither rainbow helicopters nor gourmet meals will make one bit of difference. One sincerely hopes that Miss Lohan will truly find her way home.

Troubled teenagers with serious drinking problems have had a surplus of publicity thanks to our celebrity besotted media. While the pundits tsk tsk and pretend great umbrage at the drunken antics of teen celebrities, it all seems rather insincere. If indeed these kids are crippled, then let them heal in private. But if they are what they appear to be; irresponsible. spiled rich teens, than there needs to be a great deal more condemnation.

Tsk tsks are not going to dissuade the teens at risk from pursuing their own version of self-destruction. But unlike the celebrity teens they might emulate, there will be no soft cushion of a pricey rehab and the adulation of fans. More than likely it is the beginning of many years of hell.

That’s why parents in communities across the country are waging the battle against teen age drug and alcohol abuse. Nearly every town in America can names a roster of teens dead from drunken car wrecks. What is more than irritating, is the, evidently, large number of parents who sanction their teens drinking or party with them. Gee, just like Lohan’s mom. Sometimes you wonder who needs treatment more - teens or their immature parents.

For those communities involved in organizing teen crisis intervention measures against teen alcohol abuse, RAND researchers developed a guide that can help communities in organizing their own efforts.

“To address this important problem, a team led by RAND researchers developed a guide to help communities plan, implement, and evaluate efforts to reduce and prevent underage drinking… The overarching framework for the guide is the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The SPF is a five-step approach broadly applicable to prevention efforts, including substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and violence.”

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H/T:Save Our Youth Taskforce

Teens at risk sometimes give no indication that they will ultimately succumb to teen age drug abuse.

“Ralph is shaking Lauren Jolly, a 17-year-old with a pretty face and light, shoulder-length brown hair, a former Brownie Scout, a junior at Birmingham Groves High School, a heroin addict her friends can no longer help.”

Such an odd statement…”her friends could no longer help”. You wonder how they tried. What could they have done to bring to a halt their friend’s slow descent.

“It’s May 24, 2006, and she is about to become the public face of fentanyl, a nasty laboratory concoction often mixed with heroin that exploded on the streets of Detroit, ending the lives of hundreds of metro-Detroit drug users, and more than 1,000 people nationwide.”

Yes, it’s yet another drug, another conconcoction courtesy of the dealers and the dirty labs that they run. fentanyl, like all drugs, does not discriminate between it’s victims. Rich, black, female, poor, educated or decent - it doesn’t matter once the drug owns you.

“The drug stole a once-promising young bowler from Shelby Township, a retired autoworker from Detroit, an ex-logger from out state and the lead guitarist in a rock band.

Inside the house in Detroit, a 21-year-old from Pontiac named Ben puts his fingers to the neck of the Bloomfield Township teen and feels a slow pulse.

Someone draws cold water and pours it over Lauren.

The girl is still breathing, but her pulse is faint, her blood pressure plummeting. Her eyes roll back … and she is somewhere else.”

So begins the prologue to a 15 part series on the drug fentanyl and it’s devastating presence in Detroit. Perhaps it should be mandatory summer reading for troubled teenagers.

Teens at risk seem to respond powerfully once they are given an opportunity to realize the importance of life. Sounds cliche perhaps, but, there is powerful motivation to be had when confronted with the prospect of death. All of a sudden everything a troubled teen thought was unfair or unbearable is put back into proper perspective.

A locally developed program about to go national puts troubled teenagers face to face with their own morality by having them care for those who have no future left at all.

“The unique program pairs some of the city’s most troubled teens with seriously ill children at University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics with the idea that each group will benefit from the other’s situation.

Police choose youthful offenders for the Guardian Angel Project and match them with adult mentors from the community. Every week for about eight weeks the teens and adults work together to clean and glaze statuettes of a guardian angel watching over a child. The glazed figurines are then kiln-fired and carefully packed for transport to the hospital.

Mentors and youths ride together in a bus to the hospital in Iowa City where they personally deliver their angels to children with cancer, heart problems and other life-threatening diseases.

The Guardian Angel Project is dedicated to Eric Shonhoff, 8, of East Dubuque, who did not survive his illness. He was among the first children to be given an angel and died soon after he was given the figurine. The impact of the gift was so great that Shonhoff asked to be buried with his guardian angel so he could give it to God.”

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It is strongly held as true that if you love life, you take care of life. Teen age drug abuse stems, in part, from hopelessness and a sense that life isn’t worth living. When these teenagers see how desperately some fight to hold on to life, it causes them to realize how foolish it is for them to be so careless with their own lives.

Teen help via the golf course? Can the gentleman’s game of golf have any interest for teens at risk? Can golf be used as a means of reaching the out of control teen? Can learning the art of golf keep a teen away from the nightmare of teen age drug abuse? Officials in a small town in New York seem to think so.

“Folks in the town of Islip say one way to turn troubled teenagers away from gangs could be with a round of golf.

The game would play a role in a mentoring program being developed to aid children in the Brentwood School District who officials believe are on the verge of joining a gang.

Six youngsters, ages 11 to 14, will be matched with mentors from SUNY Stony Brook, who will take the kids out for lessons and rounds at Islip’s Brentwood Country Club. “

What benefits are there in teaching teen juvenile offenders golf? Proponents of the program claim that the civility inherent in the game will be instructive in and of itself. Also, key to the course is the mentors that come with it.

“The game would play a role in a mentoring program being developed to aid children in the Brentwood School District who officials believe are on the verge of joining a gang.
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“Many of these kids have never been out of their neighborhood. It’s all they know,” said Lopez.

Golf’s relatively slow pace also leaves room for lots of talking between mentors and students, he said.”

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In addition to mentoring, advocates believe that the lessons in sportsmanship as well as exposure to a different perspective on life will go along way towards encouraging troubled teenagers into envisioning new possibilities.

Troubled teenagers, if nothing else, certainly are an inspiration for community leaders who seek out programs and initiate efforts dedicated to teen crisis intervention.

These aren’t government programs handed down from on high, but projects conceived by small committees of parents, law officers, and education, working with what is available in the community and often with limited budgets. More often than not, these are the programs that really make a difference.

A small community in the Ozarks has succeeded in making an impact with their teens at risk by two very simple endeavors that serve to teach teens the value of work, and the value of gratitude.They run a small successful program for Camden County Juvenile.

“For some, the refocusing effort has been pointed toward the center’s gardens, where community service time has been spent learning the lessons and rewards of hard labor many of us call gardening.

The literal and figurative translations both plant a seed and watch it grow ‘ one contributes food to the center’s kitchen, the other bears its fruit in productive members of society.

Another impressive idea works for some who don’t like getting their hands dirty but have a knack for stringing beads and creating jewelry.

The kids take the beads Ugandan women created from old magazines, and through a co-op, raise funds from selling jewelry. The co-op uses the money to create sustainable developments in Uganda.

The Bead for Life project compels our troubled teens to examine the lives of people halfway around the world, people who have known only the despair that comes from a desperate existence.”

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