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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

At-Risk Youth

2/4/2013

7 Comments

 
At-Risk Youth

My career for the past forty-five years or so can best be described as working with at-risk youth.  I’ve taught, counseled, lead, lectured and played beside children and youth who had been identified at some level as being at-risk for school failure, teen pregnancy, abuse, suicide, abusing drugs, gang involvement and whatever all the least, the last, and the lost of our communities fall into.

Many of the young people I’ve encountered have had various levels of various disabilities, primarily Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Autism.  Some have other mental health issues.  Many were healthy enough.  They were just poor.  Some of the youth were members of minorities.

My job included listening to their problems, teaching them to read, showing them a different way to view reality, and most of all, helping them feel lovable and valuable.  Most of the children I lost track of years ago, but some of those who passed through my life, I was able to follow long enough to know that they stayed in school, stayed sober, did not get pregnant and had minimal adverse contact with the police.

Much of my job included working with parents.  It seems I’ve said the same things over and over and over with varying degree of success.  I call these sayings my mantras.  “Your daughter is at high risk for sexual exploitation.  Get her on birth control that works and lasts.” Another mantra is, “Women of childbearing years who use alcohol must be on a reliable form of birth control.”   I have mantras that include the boys, “If your child is a danger to himself or you, you will have to remove from his environment everything that he could use to do harm, or remove him from his environment.” 

I’ve sat through more Individual Education Plan meetings than I want to remember—both for my foster daughter and with other parents.  I’ve heard thousands of tragic stories. 

After all these years, what have I learned?  I’ve learned that interventions may involve nothing more than listening.  The word intervention may mean getting a diagnosis.  Sometimes interventions involve drastically changing the environment of a youth.  I am convinced that interventions save lives and save money.  I’ve learned that we can have better outcomes for people with disabilities than a life in prisons, or addiction, or prostitution, or abuse, or premature death.  We can give our at-risk youth better options than those they can find for themselves.

Over the years, I’ve watched as safe alternatives and intervention programs have disappeared from our communities while unhealthy elements continue to mushroom. I’ve watched our communities lose the war on drugs.  I’ve watched the prison population expand as viable out-of-home placements for the at-risk have dwindled.  I’ve watched special interest groups shout down the scientific community’s message about prevention, so despite more knowledge we have more prenatal exposure to a soup of toxins that have no business in a healthy society.

Still, I look at a long line of thousands of individuals who got the support they needed when they needed it, and their lives have had healthy outcomes.  Now, I see our communities, our states and our whole country sitting at a crossroads staring in horror at the violence around us and wondering, “what happened and where do we go from here?”

The answer is to look at what has worked.  Living in community works.  Let’s work as a community to give our at-risk youth the support they need.  This may mean that churches will need to fund chaperoned, fun, safe activities for youth.  Communities will need to fund counselors who are accessible to youth.  Funding is needed for outside-of-school literacy and educational opportunities.  I happen to agree with our schools that they cannot do the whole job, alone. 

Parents or grandparents need to be available to their children, and they must have the legal right to ground, medicate or restrain their at-risk child.  Parents need to be able to earn a living wage that allows them to provide supervision for their children especially their adolescent children.

The steps I’ve outlined must be part of our national dialogue on safe communities.  I’m a little sick of those who refuse to fund or take simple proactive steps toward solving our violence problems demanding their right to engage in whatever unhealthy practice they choose.  We know how to identify and support the vulnerable.  It is way past time to put on our gloves and get the job done.

7 Comments
joselle
2/4/2013 04:00:28 am

Thank you - I've been talking community for years. I can't do it alone and no one else can either. The community needs to be a part of raising our SN kids and our non-SN kids (I have one of each). We wonder about the violence but we don't take the time to keep kids in our communities when they don't fit the "right" molds and so they act out.

Reply
Delinda Mccann
2/4/2013 05:32:10 am

Theoretically the structure is present, but it seems that people have fallen asleep to the idea that the at-risk child really needs to be included in their groups be it sports or church, scouts, 4-H, whatever.

Reply
joselle
2/4/2013 08:23:35 am

That's what community is - the structure isn't there. It needs to include our children without extensive explanations of why they have to be included. I wish it was simply lack of awareness but sometimes it's a conscious ignoring of our SN children because it "slows" down the ones who are not SN. There is a degree of "my child deserves the best and being with your child is not the best for my child simply because your child doesn't push mine forward."

Reply
Lynn
2/4/2013 09:50:58 pm

Unfortunately there is no cookie cutter solution. Some of my experiences have led me to believe that total inclusion in all things may not always be best. Our daughter was in Girl Guides, a very supportive and accepting group. The problem was that our daughter was painfully aware that she was not able to do all that the other girls could do. It didn't matter how much support and encouragement and accomodations we provided, she could not accept that she could not do what everyone else was doing. I often thought she would have done much better in a group of people functioning at the same level as her. Of all the things that she DID NOT get, the most painful thing that she DID get was the self awareness that she is different.

Reply
joselle
2/4/2013 10:06:10 pm

I agree - total inclusion isn't always the answer. We had a wonderful group of girl scouts whose girls were all on the autism scale and it functioned much better than integrating (some) of those girls into other troops. I was thinking more along the line of including and accepting kids where they fit - not shoehorning them into situations where they (and the larger community) are painfully aware of the differences. There is a tendancy to either ignore kids who are different leaving them totally ostracized or over including. It's community awareness and involvement I'm referring to. I'm very active in the international adoption community and my oldest is alcohol affected. Most of our kids (FRUA OR) were affected and fall somewhere on the spectrum. There is so little awareness of the issues around alcohol. Of course, I'm preaching tot he choir here :-)

Reply
Bob Vick
2/4/2013 10:28:23 pm

We do have our FAS kids involved in everything, it is our higher IQ FAS kids that abuse those previlages & dive into trouble, always spouting the rights answers, with rarely the right actions.

Reply
Delinda Mccann
2/5/2013 05:55:21 am

Lynn - Thanks for sharing. Your experience are an important part of our dialog on violence.
Joselle - This blog really isn't the choir. I'm excited to have primarily readers from outside the disabilities community.

Reply



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    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

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