An ounce of prevention: Programs support healthy family behaviors

By Brenna Wiegand

With increasingly scary number of heroin and other drug-related deaths among teens and young adults, public and private entities are joining forces to help give parents preventative measures and guidance when they suspect a problem.

After heroin-related deaths doubled from 5 to 10 in Marion County in 2012, Marion County dubbed 2013 The Year of the Child and galvanized its efforts to combat drug abuse and other dangerous behaviors.

Along with that, Alison Kelley, formerly of Marion County Community Services, developed the Drxugsafe program, a collaborative public-private project in Marion County mobilizing community resources to decrease prescription drug and heroin abuse throughout the county.

Its website is replete with facts, strategies and encouragement for families to arm themselves and protect their children from the false lure of drugs.

“It’s full of things families can do to keep kids from getting into Grandma’s pills,” Kelley said. “Lots of tips so that they can’t get them; they can’t sell them; they can’t take them to parties – we are trying to slow down the flow of those drugs into our community.”

Teens and young adults stealing a family member’s or friend’s prescription medicine is “kind of that silent thing that almost creeps up on you; many have no idea,” said Tamra Goettsch, director of Marion County Community Services.

With prescription drugs, there are no track marks; no smell.

“You can watch for small pieces of foil with black streaks where a pill was heated up and inhaled… they’ll save them to use in case they run out, ” Goettsch said. Other signs include “small pupils; not being totally present; more keyed up. Many kids are driving while buzzed,”

Heroin is not only extremely addictive and very hard to recover from; it carries a stigma that makes it harder to talk about; and harder to ask for help. There’s an added concern: when buyers take to the streets for heroin they never know what they’re getting.

“If you happen to hit that euphoria the first time, that is definitely a strong pull,” Kelley said.

“The goal of DrxugSafe is to strongly urge all community members to help children, youth and families achieve their goals and help communities in Marion County be more successful.”

Receiving timely, relevant information, Goettsch said, is important, but gathering around the dinner table is priceless.

“With a lot of things it’s communication,” Goettsch said. “Research has identified family dinners and conversation four to five times a week as a prevention strategy that strengthens relationships and commitment between families who, by and large, have lower drug use. And it doesn’t cost anything.

“If you’ve got busy teens, be creative – how about a midnight snack?” she added.

Another great tool to success is providing kids with as many of the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets as possible.

The most widely used approach to positive youth development in the U.S., the assets fall under the categories of support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, constructive use of time, commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies and positive identity.

“It’s not just the responsibility of the parents, teachers or faith community or schools,” Goettsch said. “Building up these assets really does take the whole community.”

Search Institute’s studies of more than 2.2 million young people consistently show that the more of these relationships, opportunities and personal qualities they possess, the less likely they are to engage in a wide range of high-risk behaviors and the more likely they are to thrive and reach their goals.

“What we have seen locally is more or less a status quo of drug use in our community,” Silverton Police Chief Jeff Fossholm said. “This is not to say that we don’t have a drug problem, as illegal drug use continues to be a problem for every community in the state and nation. We continue to have a teen-young adult population that is using and/or experimenting with harder drugs.”

“They’re cheaper to get and there is a large variety of types of drugs,” said Silverton Together Director Jan Holowati.

In April Silverton Together will kick off another Strengthening Families series for young people 10-14 and their parents. For the first part of class the groups are in separate rooms, but they come together for a family assignment or game to help each party realize the importance of family, learn skills for working together and help ensure more quality time.

Silverton Together offers parenting classes for all stages of a child’s life, including workshops for the unique stresses that come with parenting. Though the free classes receive glowing reviews from participants, many people still don’t know of them or feel they can’t afford the time.

“Kids go through so much stuff that is really out of a parent’s control,” Holowati said. “Our whole goal is happy, healthy families and preventing drug abuse, child abuse and all the other stuff happening – and tools for handling them when they come.”