Title Help! Teenagers using drugs
Funding round 2
A parent called our service in distress after finding out that her 13 year old son was using cannabis and ecstasy. He had arrived home the night before obviously under the influence of something and his friend who'd brought him home said that he'd passed out and his eyes had been rolling around a lot. The 13 year old spent the rest of the evening being sick and Mum was obviously very worried about him and spent the night looking after him.
Mum acknowledged that she didn't know much about drugs and was very scared for her son's safety. She'd tried to talk to him about what had happened the night before but he hadn't been very responsive. After calming Mum down and giving her some basic information on the effects of cannabis and ecstasy and different ways to talk to young people about drugs, we agreed that it might be helpful for us to meet and do a drugs awareness session. I met with Mum a few days later and we discussed her concerns and looked at different drugs, their effects and their risks. She fed back that it had been very useful to see what drugs looked like and how they were used. The 13 year old was at home after being excluded from school and later on, I managed to engage him in the conversation. We talked about the risks associated with using cannabis, ecstasy and alcohol and encouraged him to understand his Mum's concerns for him, and how important it was for his Mum to know what had been taken if an emergency situation arose.
A couple of weeks later, the 13 year old requested another visit as he wanted to talk more about his drug use. The three of us met up again and we had another session on drugs awareness that included the legal penalties associated with possession and supply, the stages of drug use, the importance of trying to communicate honestly and openly about drugs and harm minimisation with regard to cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and drinking alcohol. The 13 year old seemed quite comfortable discussing what he knew about different substances and did reveal details of some of the drugs he'd tried and how it had made him feel. Mum later said that she'd been surprised and shocked by what she heard but I reflected that she'd hidden that very well and how positive that had been in terms of making her son feel able to talk honestly and openly. Both of them felt the session had been useful and on the evaluation sheet, the 13 year old put that he thought the session had been excellent and that he'd learnt a lot more about drugs. Before leaving, I spoke with the 13 year old on his own and suggested that he may find it useful to meet with a drugs worker on a one to one basis to further explore his drug use, make sure he was keeping himself safe and look at any changes he may want to make to his current levels of use. He agreed to do this so I made a referral to BASE 10, a tier two treatment service for young people. He engaged well and attended several sessions to discuss his drug use and has since stopped using ecstasy and cocaine although he continues to use cannabis. I continued to speak to Mum regularly to see how things were going and she fed back that things had been a lot better and that her son had opened up more and their relationship had improved. She also said that everyone in the family was a lot happier as things were calmer in the house. At the end of the intervention, Mum filled in an evaluation form and reported positive improvements on all six outcomes that we monitor (Drug and Alcohol Awareness, Parent's well-being, Awareness of other support agencies, Family Relations, Parenting Skills and Outcomes for Young People).