News10’s Cristina Mendonsa hosted a “Parent Empowerment Program,” Thursday at the Community Center. The open discussion brought together experts experienced in teen drug use, with parents concerned about their children.
The experts gave parents ideas on how to tell if there are warning flags, possibly enabling the problems to be detected and caught early.
Police experts gave information on the drugs in common use and ways to detect that there is a problem, Chris Aland, a school Vice Principal gave information on their efforts to protect the children and detect problems – and also talked about the adverse consequences of drug use. A mother and teacher talked about her two addicted sons and a student talked about his own drug use and addiction while a teenager.
John Daily, a specialist in outpatient treatment, gave information about the most common age kids get started on drugs and how to recognize if a child has a drug problem.
Christina Mendonsa did a great job of facilitating, introducing the speakers and working with the parents to get all their questions out and answered.
A lot more information is available and it will be shown here soon, as soon as I receive it.
I have video of the whole session, about 84 minutes and I’m processing it now. Please let me know if you are interested in seeing it all and I’ll work out the best way to do it.
