Pubdate: Sun, 14 May 2006
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Laura Czekaj
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

GUIDING TEENS ALONG REHAB'S ROCKY PATH

Educators Find It Pays To Have A Drug Abuse Program Teens Can Use 
Within School Hours, Writes Laura Czekaj

IT WASN'T A decision of great consequence for 17-year-old Christina Gharabeygi.

Seated at her kitchen table, her four years of slow decline into 
substance abuse stretching out behind her like an invisible noose 
growing tighter each year, each joint, each high, she contemplated 
her options -- rehab or suicide?

"And neither option was all that good," she recalls.

The matter-of-fact way the teenager pondered her fate -- to live and 
give up drugs or abruptly end it all right then and there -- now 
sends a shiver down the spine of the now older, wiser and sober Gharabeygi.

"Why should any 17-year-old be in that position where you think your 
life has become pointless?" she asks.

While the path to getting clean was a rocky one of rehabilitation, 
relapse and back again, Gharabeygi has travelled a long way in a short time.

Sobriety has handed her the key to a future. Well on her way to 
obtaining a university degree in nutrition, the 23-year-old has a 
renewed lease on life -- a lease co-signed by a local addiction centre.

"The people who end up going to Rideauwood Addiction and Family 
Services are people like myself who were sort of at the end of their 
addiction and really need help immediately or they are going to die 
or going to be not fixable, not reachable," she says.

While Gharabeygi has used several of Rideauwood's programs over the 
years, she is particularly supportive of its school-based program.

"I think Rideauwood is necessary in the school system because it's so 
difficult for parents and teachers and guidance counsellors to get 
the kids who need the help in those early stages to Rideauwood," she says.

There's no shortage of young people needing addiction treatment. 
Rideauwood says it's serving 650 to 700 clients a year within the 
school-based program, which began in the late 1980s.

'Hard To Abandon Kids'

"Why do we do this? Well, it's pretty hard to abandon kids who are 
moving into a full-blown chronic addiction," says Paul Welsh, 
Rideauwood executive director.

Two decades later, it has a full-blown treatment program which 
provides 18 local high schools with a minimum of 10.5 hours a week 
per school, up to 17.5 hours a week of treatment. It operates in the 
school, during school hours with youth-specific substance abuse counsellors.

Referrals come from the school and occasionally the kids themselves 
or their parents.

"It's always been a response to a need," says Welsh.

Sadly, the need appears to be affecting younger and younger children. 
Welsh has heard about kids who are having difficulty with drugs and 
alcohol as early as age 11.

"The problems in a child's life may be and probably are symptomatic 
of the substance abuse that is going on," he says. "They may also be 
the contributing factors that put the kid in risk of developing a 
substance abuse in the first place."

On average, the kids Rideauwood workers serve in the schools are 
smoking marijuana in excess of 25 days per month and they are heavily 
using alcohol nine days per month.

About 20-25% are already out of school because of alcohol and drugs 
and want to get back in and 62% of those referred to the program are 
flagged as a high risk for dropping out.

The treatment strategy is to work with the young person to identify 
the difficulties in their lives and what they must do to achieve 
goals, such as doing better in school, says Welsh.

The addiction treatment program has been successful in integrating 
youths back into the school system and retaining those at risk of leaving.

Of the 62% identified as a high risk for dropping out, 80% completed 
the school year. Overall, 85% of school-based program clients 
complete the school year.

Keeping kids in the classroom is not all the program does, says 
Welsh. The last program evaluation indicated the clients' grades went 
up on average 6% and there was a 17% increase in achievement in 
academic credits.

Many of the kids stop using alcohol and drugs altogether and those 
who didn't cut their substance use considerably.

"The savings to the taxpayer are huge because we are preventing kids 
from going on welfare, we are preventing them from low-income jobs 
that pay very little taxes, we are preventing them from going into a 
life of crime," says Welsh.

According to the Costs of Substance Abuse in Canada 2002 study 
released in April by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the 
abuse of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs cost Ontario $14 billion 
over a one-year period, or $1,185 per person in the province.

The economic burden is comprised of both health care and criminal 
justice costs, as well as the indirect drain on productivity 
resulting from disability and premature death.

Growing Need

The Catholic school board has sealed a deal with Rideauwood to expand 
on the current six high schools by offering the program at four 
additional schools the next academic year, followed by two more each 
year until it is in all 14 high schools.

It's through provincial grants and local money raised that the school 
board has funded the "costly partnership," says Michael Baine, 
superintendent of special education with the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic 
School Board.

"The need has always been there. I have been a superintendent for a 
lot of years, but before that I was a high school principal and there 
was a need then," he says. "The problem was always, as usually is the 
case, money."

Baine says the program costs about $28,000 per school and points out 
that the Ministry of Education does not provide regular grants 
targeting substance abuse treatment. The answer to the program 
funding question in the past was answered through individual schools 
fundraising and Rideauwood's contribution of additional funding.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, where the program was 
pioneered about 20 years ago, allocated about $250,000 in addiction 
treatment program funding in last year's budget, an unprecedented 
feat for the cash-strapped board that may not be repeated in coming 
budget debates.

"As the budget unfolds, we'll see what the options are in relation to 
both the current program and any kind of expansion," says Dan 
Wiseman, the public board's manager of safe schools and community 
agency liaison.

Wiseman says the mayor's Integrated Drugs and Addiction Strategy 
Network is an important overview of addiction treatment in the 
community. He's hopeful it will have offshoot benefits for the 
education system.

"We'll stay tuned and see how it goes and see how it impacts on our 
school-based programming, but that clearly is the way to begin to put 
a citywide initiative together not just for youth but for the whole 
age span," he says. "We are moving in a number of very important ways here."

In a climate of education-oriented provincial funding -- specifically 
the Liberal initiative to cut the Ontario dropout rate from 30% to 
15% by 2010 -- there have been no publicly announced dollars targeted 
at school-based addiction programs.

Wiseman expects that those funds will flow inconspicuously through 
the province's two endeavours: review of the Safe Schools Act and 
increasing the dropout age to 18.

But it does seem strange that an existing program well-entrenched in 
the school system for decades and proven to keep kids in school does 
not receive direct and recognizable funding from the Ontario government.

"We can't just pretend or ignore the fact we have children who are 
serious substance abusers," said Baine. "We need to have a 
comprehensive program that starts prevention and education in the 
early grades and continues, but also recognize that that's not going 
to keep all kids from starting and therefore we need some way to treat them."

The question arises why publicly funded schools should provide 
addiction treatment services to students. Shouldn't that be up to the parents?

Baine concedes there are two schools of thought: Some say it's not 
the responsibility of schools, while others say the program will 
retain students on the cusp of dropping out.

He says these kids' education is not expendable and substance abuse 
is prevalent in all high schools, not just ones in lower 
socio-economic neighbourhoods. Even kids coming from well-off or 
middle-class families abuse drugs and alcohol.

"We do so many things now that are beyond the Three Rs that this is 
just another one," he says.

Welsh says the presence of the program in schools makes it easily 
accessible to students and allows them to remain in their comfort 
zone while dealing with a subject that for them may be anything but 
comfortable.

School staff are also able to recognize the symptoms of substance 
abuse, something a child can keep well-hidden from a parent.

"School-based programs are absolute winners because the need is so 
high and the potential for change is so high," says Welsh. "The 
successful outcomes are so good and the cost of treatment are less 
than you would find in other areas."

It's also cost-effective for Rideauwood to hold programs in schools 
because it cuts down on travel costs, other expenses and results in 
fewer no-shows because the kids are coming to school anyway. It also 
provides them with an incentive to attend school so they can attend 
the counselling sessions.

 From her unique vantage point, Gharabeygi says youth addiction is 
greatly undertreated and is a problem that's much larger than most realize.

"There is a lot of pressure on young people to socialize and a lot of 
that is done through drinking or smoking pot -- that kind of stuff," she says.

Even a kid who falls into the casual user category is at risk of 
sliding down the slippery slope of addiction.

"You can make that transition exponentially and it doesn't take 10 
years, it doesn't take that much time at all actually,"she says. "I 
went, literally, from being a perfectly normal 14-year-old who had a 
couple of drinks here and there and just hung out with friends and 
smoked a joint, to at 16 I was at a very unpleasant place, and by 17 
I needed help --professional help -- or it was going to be too late."

Catch Them

The counsellors in the schools work with the kids in the early stages 
of their addiction and can help them before things get to the point 
where the child is unreachable, she says.

Gharabeygi knows firsthand the sensation of being lost and not 
knowing where to turn. She prays those youngsters who come after her 
don't reach that precipice. But if they do, she hopes Rideauwood is 
there to catch them.

"I think I have done the best that I could and when I couldn't do 
what I needed to do, I knew I could call Rideauwood and get that 
helping hand," she says.

Breaking The Habits:

Facts about Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services' school-based program:

- -650 to 700 students are treated annually.

- -The program is currently in 18 high schools in the city -- five in 
the Catholic board and 13 in the public board, as well as in St. 
Mary's Home, a home for pregnant young women run in co-operation with 
the Catholic board.

- -About 60% of kids in the program are in Grades 9 and 10 and come 
from all economic levels.

- -Rideauwood is one of the largest providers of the school-based 
service in Ontario.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman