Pubdate: Wed, 09 Mar 2005
Source: Daily News, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2005, Independent Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thedailynews.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1056
Author: Nick Churchouse
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

NEW APPROACH TO ANTI-DRUG PUSH

A new anti-drug initiative in Taranaki schools is being heralded as
the single biggest king-hit for youth justice by New Zealand's leading
judge.

High on Life is a revolutionary way of looking at drugs in schools and
is trying to stop the destructive cycle of exclusion punishment.

Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft is backing the initiative
and will be in New Plymouth tomorrow and Friday talking to principals
and community workers.

"It's about the most effective first step we can take to attack youth
offending, and it deserves community support," he said.

The programme deals with drug offending in schools by way of
second-chance counselling and education rather than by traditional
suspensions and expulsions, and all 13 Taranaki secondary schools are
promoting it simultaneously.

"Just the simple fact of retaining kids at school, even just being
there, is a hugely protective factor," Mr Becroft said.

"You could almost go as far as to say that every young person kept at
school is one less potential youth offender."

While the results of the programme would be evaluated in two years, Mr
Becroft said the real benefits could be felt up to 10 years down the
track in the courts.

"A drug user excluded from school is simply a problem relocated, not a
problem solved. Eighty per cent of those we see in the youth court are
not engaged at school," he said.

Ministry of Education special education facilitator Mark Corrigan said
the initiative was about creating an honest and open relationship
between students, schools and alcohol and drug agencies.

"It's about changing the way schools think about it, and making
alcohol and drug agencies more accessible," he said.

He said one-on-one counselling often did not work with youths,
especially the group most likely to be caught with drugs, 14-year-old
boys.

A similar programme had been tried in Wanganui previously and Taranaki
was a logical venue for the concept as half of the exclusion
statistics in schools were for drug-related incidents.

Inglewood High School principal Angela Gattung was enthusiastic about
the novel way of dealing with an increasing problem in schools.

"It's actually trying to take the punishment out of it. It's trying to
help kids in an educational sense rather than a punitive sense," she
said.

Mihi Kahu, manager of community organisation Raumano Trust in Patea,
said the innovative approach was the key to students making sensible
choices.

"Other models haven't worked. This has a lot of positivity to it," she
said.

Mr Becroft hoped the High on Life programme would stretch from
Taranaki across the country.

"It's such a tragedy in the youth court to see a life wasted and
blighted by alcohol and drug dependence.

"I was in the youth court today with a boy like that. If only he could
have got help at the school in the first place," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin