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Other subjects of the documentary have fallen back into the tragic consequences of heroin addiction. O’Brien sadly reports that one woman who appears in the film has been arrested for heroin possession since the movie was released. The Vermont Health Plan, BCBSVT’s HMO affiliate, underwrote the fall tour of the film. BCBSVT employees attended each performance to help with programs and lend support. “The discussions that followed the presentation of the film were the most powerful part of the Here Today experience,” says Bonnie Brassard, corporate communications specialist at BCBSVT. She and co-worker Lena Hart attended two of the most well-attended tour dates. They attended a standing-room–only showing at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro and joined more than 500 of their neighbors at the Barre Opera House for a Central Vermont event. “I knew that we had a heroin problem in our community before I saw the film,” Brassard notes. “I worried even then that my son will be going to high school soon and may run into people who are using drugs. But the film and discussion sessions really helped me consider questions about what we, as parents and as a community, can do about the problem.” “In every discussion session, we heard from Vermonters who have battled heroin abuse, either personally or with addicted family members,” Hart relates. “After hearing the stories of the individuals in the film and the stories of audience participants in discussion, we all felt moved to fight the widespread movement of heroin and other dangerous drugs into Vermont communities.” What can we do to keep drugs out of the hands of our children? “First and foremost, stay involved with your children,” says Richard Taylor, who works at the Department of Health in the alcohol and substance abuse prevention division and also appears in Here Today. “Parenting is a bigger job than most people anticipate—a bigger job than I anticipated. At the beginning, you figure it’s all about holding this little baby against your chest and helping him go to sleep. It’s much more complicated than that. “What drug abuse prevention in families boils down to is that you have to be parents, be available, be involved in so many ways—not just on one-on-one with your children, but also with everything about their lives. “Be involved in their peer selection. Be involved in their schools. I think that one of the loneliest places I go is a parent-teacher event. You can sometimes hear the echoes in the halls. I think parents start off being involved. They want to know how their children are doing, whether they have learning disabilities, whether they’re bright—all the normal parent paranoia stuff. That kind of involvement has to continue as children grow older,” he stresses. “Attend their sports activities, their music concerts—participate in every aspect of your kid’s life; you need to be involved,” he reiterates. “Being a good parent is being a partner—with your child, with the school and with the community. You need to get totally immersed in your child. This isn’t easy in most families, where both parents work. Sometimes parents get so wrapped up in providing kids with clothing and shelter that they forget some of their children’s other basic needs—guidance, support, discipline, boundaries. Children need and want all these things. They like to be able to think, ‘I can only go so far here’ and they get these boundaries from parents who know how to be positive and consistent with their discipline techniques,” Taylor says. Taylor also reminds parents of the worth of a good talk. “I think it helps to talk about drugs--why people use them and the risks they present. Kids who hear about the risks of drugs from their parents are 50% less likely to use,” he says. “You can look at a discussion about drugs just like you would look at a discussion about strangers. Talk about getting to know people before trusting them—tell your child to think about what he or she is doing. Remember that you’re imparting skills that the child can use in dealing with various situations that come up down the line,” he explained. How do you talk to kids? How do you bring up the subject? While Taylor believes strongly in early education, he admits that broaching the subject of drug abuse with small children presents difficulties. “You could use commercials on TV or questions about alcohol to raise the subject of substance abuse. It may be necessary to just bring up a discussion out of the blue, since drug use is something that’s abstract to children. But you could even talk about it when you deal with temper tantrums. You could say, ‘It’s hard to deal with feelings like you’re having now, but you need to learn. Some people don’t learn how to deal with disappointment and frustration. They use drugs to kill their feelings.’ It may take some creativity to encourage a discussion early enough to do some good,” he explains. “Parents are often uncomfortable about talking about things like drugs and sex. You just have to remind yourself that you’re the one who’s uncomfortable. Children are curious; they love to learn things. They won’t mind,” he notes. When deciding whether a very young child is ready to hear about drugs, you may have to take into consideration where the child will grow up. Keep the child’s home life, family and environment in mind when talking about drug abuse,” he allowed. What about when they hit the teenage years and they roll their eyes when you bring up the subject? “I just say, ‘We have to have another talk about drugs,’ even if my son then reminds me that we just had a talk about drugs last week,” he states. “I say that I know what damage drugs can do and it’s my responsibility to talk about it because I love him. That’s the key. You do it in a respectful, compassionate way with love,” he relates. “When talking with children about drugs, make sure to be considerate and compassionate about the problem. I think that, as a society, we need to break down some of the stigmas about addiction. People don’t choose a path of heroin addiction and we want to stress that substance abuse is an illness and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to all kinds of people from all walks of life,” he says. “Know where your children are, particularly during the after-school hours, when many children first try drugs,” Taylor states. “Although your children may see this as interference with their newfound independence, persevere. Again, explain to your children that you’re monitoring their activities out of love, fear for their safety and a genuine interest their lives,” he notes. “Encourage your child to get involved with school-sponsored activities or other adult-supervised events after school. While you don’t want to over-schedule your child’s life, having purposeful things to do helps keep kids from experimenting with drugs. This might be somewhat intuitive to you if you remember what happened when you had ‘nothing to do’ as a teenager,” he relates. How can the community help? “Parents need to be involved in their communities and communities have to help parents,” Taylor suggests. “Parents need to participate in their own environments and in their children’s environments,” he notes. “But even if you’re not a parent, your community can use your support in trying to deal with the prevention and treatment of substance abuse. “Control the environment where youths gather (skate parks, movie theatres, schools). “As a citizen, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you can see what’s going on. Remind yourself not to tolerate an environment conducive to drug activity in your community. If you see something that concerns you, notify local police, municipal government, business owners or schools,” he says. “Let the legislature know what your community needs are. Tell you representatives that you want this issue prioritized. Heroin is a huge issue, but the whole arena of substance abuse needs to be high priority. Today, Vermont’s in a tough economic condition. The unfortunate reality is that there isn’t a lot of money out there for prevention and treatment programs. Make your voice heard in local government and confirm the need to give substance abuse issues a high priority. “Also, put pressure on schools to have student assistance programs. If the saying is true that our children are our most important assets, we need to back that up,” Taylor affirms.“If you’re not a parent, you can volunteer to be a mentor for a child in your community. Generally, the more healthy relationships with adults a child has, the better off that child is going to be. Many times, children from single-parent homes can benefit from having other adults to whom they can talk. If there’s one thing you can do to make a difference in a child’s life, be a mentor, or a big brother or big sister,” he says. “If you don’t like what you see in your community and you want to get involved, there are a number of different prevention coalitions you can join,” Taylor reports. (Visit the “Here Today” page of the health education/community outreach section of www.bcbsvt.com for a list of Vermont prevention groups.) “There are also some new grassroots organizations forming—some as result of the (Here Today) film, some because heroin is a growing problem. There are any number of different groups you can join to help stop drugs from coming into your community,” he adds. “Here in the Northeast Kingdom, we have a new program called 'Communities of Concern'. It was started at St. Johnsbury Academy, but now they’re organized at the community level as well,” he relates. “You can get involved in the community through your workplace. Ask your employer, “What is our alcohol and drug policy? Do we have an employee assistance program? In this way, we can involve the business community as well.” “It’s also important to support community resources for parents, whether you’re currently parenting children yourself or not. Families come to us and they don’t have skills to be able to teach their children important survival skills; things need to be in place to help them. Sometimes prevention projects may look just like parenting courses--parents have to teach kids how to deal with life’s rejections, frustrations, and disappointments. They have to say, ‘How do you deal with that feeling? Do you sit down and drink seven or eight beers or do you do something positive to make a change?' “When I talk about community involvement, I mean involvement in any form — however informal. When I was growing up in the projects, one of my neighbors would contact my parents when she had concerns about what I was doing. Giving that ‘I’ve-seen-your-son . . .’ heads-up can be a type of community involvement and it can make a difference. For me, just knowing that someone may have been watching me and caring about me gave me an opportunity to think about what I was doing instead of being completely spontaneous. I thought, ‘Wow, if I’m thinking about (the possibility of someone telling my parents), maybe what I’m considering isn’t such a smart a thing to do,” he remembers. Taylor reminds Vermonters to exercise great compassion when relating to community members who may be dealing with heroin or other drug abuse problems. “Remember not to blame addicts or their families for their problems,” he states. “Here Today does a good job of showing that while we should take steps to reduce the odds of heroin addiction in our families and our communities, these steps aren’t always effective. Substance abuse problems strike all types of families for all kinds of reasons. Don’t judge a neighbor who is suffering through the impact of addition. Instead ask 'How can I help?'” |
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