At Risk Youth

From the acid rock of the 1960s counterculture to the rap music that rose up from the urban streets in the 1980s, music has both motivated and reflected the attitudes and behaviors of young people.

With that thought in mind, two burgeoning music mavens in Jackson, Mississippi are attempting to entice at-risk youth to follow a healthier path. Jackson Citizen Patriot writer Fredricka Paul featured the effort in a July 2 article:

The vision of David Warnsley and Calvin Miller is for at-risk youth to get a positive message through familiar music. So, in March, they started Vine Records.

The record label’s mission statement is to make an impact on youth through fellowship and faith-based teaching while “emphasizing excitement, fun, drama, music and dance all in a manner which glorifies God.” …

The young people whom Miller and Warnsley work with do not just record positive messages. They make sure the young musicians live by them.

Their grades have to remain high, and they must stay out of trouble. Otherwise, Warnsley said, they are not allowed to record “until they get it right.”

Sixteen-year-old Vanessa Ryan said that the Vine Records project gave her a more positive outlook on her life and the lives of others. “You are bringing hope to someone,” she told the Citizen Patriot, “singing about what you look forward to in life.”

Many adults blame teens’ tendency to engage in risky behaviors on the belief that “young people think they’re going to live forever.”

But according to a June 29 Associated Press article a new study reveals that the truth may be decidedly different

A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they’re going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they’re invulnerable to harm.

Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances “because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake,” said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s extremely important to talk about how perception of risk influences risk-taking behavior,” Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna (who has done similar research) told the AP.

State budget cuts are forcing the closure of two therapeutic outdoor programs for troubled youth in North Carolina, according to a June 19 article by Jannette Pippin of jdnews.com:

Due to anticipated cuts in state funding, Eckerd Youth Alternatives is shutting down two of the seven outdoor therapeutic programs it has in North Carolina, according to organization spokeswoman Karen Bonsignori. Camp E-Ma-Henwu in Newport and Camp E-Toh-Kalu in Hendersonville are the two impacted. …

Bonsignori said the bulk of the operating budget for the programs comes from state funding, and the anticipated cuts will be too steep to keep them all open. …

Eckerd Youth Alternative’s outdoor therapeutic programs are residential programs for boys and girls ages 10 to 17 with difficulty functioning in social, family and school environments. The programs combine education with group and individual counseling, outdoor adventure activities and relationship and communication-building skills.

Bonsignori told Pippin that EYA planned to work with a variety of other agencies and organizations to help find placements for troubled youth who would have been served by the two closing camps.

As it has done every year since 1998, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is calling for greater awareness of the scourge of drug abuse today, June 26, as it observes the annual International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. The effort is designed to focus specific attention on the continuing devastation of adolescent and ten substance abuse:

The use of illicit drugs harms individuals, families and society at large. Drugs control the body and mind of individual consumers, the drug crop and drug cartels control farmers, trafficking and crime control communities.

Teenagers and young adults are particularly vulnerable to using illicit drugs. The prevalence of drug use among young people is more than twice as high as that among the general population. At this age, peer pressure to experiment with illicit drugs can be strong and self-esteem is often low.

Also, those who take drugs tend to be either misinformed or insufficiently aware of the health risks involved. (Source: UNODC website)

“The rising use of addictive drugs has become one of the biggest social problems threatening various countries,” Dr Jitendra Nagpal wrote in a June 26 article on the UNDOC observance that appeared on the DoctorNDTV website.

“Adolescent drug use is an important social issue as its development and consequences impact directly on academic achievement, high school dropout rate, early sexual initiation, and troubled interpersonal relationships, among other consequences,” Dr. Nagpal wrote.

A survey of more than 4,000 students from South Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools returned some good news, some not-so-good news.

According to a June 23 article by Alexa Garcia-Ditta of the Charlotte Observer, the Substance Abuse Prevention Services of the Carolinas has discovered that surveyed students in grades six to 12 are smoking less, but binge drinking more:

Results showed that, compared to previous surveys, cigarette smoking, marijuana use and alcohol consumption declined overall. … But binge drinking is on the rise.

Of the 14 percent of teens who indicated they had drunk alcohol in the previous 30 days, 38 percent of those said they had five or more drinks in a short time. In 2006, 32.5 percent of teens who drank reported binge drinking.

In addition to a youth binge drinking problem, the survey also revealed troubling levels of solo drinking among young South Carolina students.

“Of the 14 percent [of surveyed students] who reported drinking in the previous 30 days, 10.5 percent drank at home and alone,” Garcia-Ditta reported. “Even more alarming, 4.7 percent of the drinkers were in middle school; 20 percent of those kids reported that they drank at home and alone.”