Counselor: Education, communication keys to preventing more youth tragedies

Following this week’s death of a 12-year-old girl, which is being attributed to her inhalation of aerosol fumes, many parents are asking: What can I do prevent this tragedy from happening in my family?
“The best prevention is going to be an excellent, open relationship with your child. That’s the first thing,” Elizabeth Flynn, director of community development at Mark Twain Area Counseling Center. “You can’t be afraid to talk to them. You can’t be afraid to name the things you’re afraid of as a parent for fear it will put ideas in their head. Believe me, they all talk. They all know what’s going on.”
While youngsters may know who among their peers is “huffing” or “dusting,” they frequently have no idea how much risk they are taking, says Flynn.
“According to one of my therapists the kids think that they are simply sniffing compressed air and that’s what’s making them high. What they’re not connecting the dots with is that there are so many other things in that air,” she said. “Most of the time there isn’t a level of toxic buildup for some of these chemicals. It’s lethal or it’s not. There’s no way to know ahead of time. This stuff is toxic. That’s why there are warnings on cans.”
As important as communication is, Flynn says parents must arm themselves with information about this potentially deadly practice.
“What I would love to see is for parents to become as educated in what’s happening with kids and their drug abuse as kids are,” she said. “I’m not quite sure how to get that done. But I think as a community it would be really helpful. We have all kinds of programs and workshops to reach out to kids. I’d like to see us take a little bit of time to do a parents night and have an open seminar for parents.”
Flynn’s wish may come true. Following a meeting Thursday involving a number of local agencies that periodically come into contact with young people who have been “huffing,” Police Chief Lyndell Davis said a series of community meetings will be scheduled in the near future with this drug problem as its topic.
“The purpose of the meetings would be to allow parents to get a little more education and awareness about these issues,” he said.
Out of this meeting Davis wants parents to get straight answers on a wide range of topics, ranging from the signs that a youngster is experimenting with inhalants to the services that are available to aid a family with an aerosol abuser.
“We do want to help facilitate this, to try to get people pointed in the right direction because we don’t want to point people to the wrong agency and find out that did them no good. Sometimes the parents are bewildered on what they’re supposed to do,” he said.
While Davis acknowledged that “huffing” is a serious problem, it’s not one readily addressed by the police.
“I don’t want people to think that the police are the ones to solve this because that’s not going to be beneficial to anyone. We’re not the perfect tool for this job,” he said. “We want to be able to, when people do turn to us, I want us to be able to give them an accurate answer of where to turn.”
Representatives of a number of community and area agencies, meeting Thursday afternoon at Douglass Community Services, said they stand ready to assist families who find themselves confronting this drug problem.
“There’s a variety of resources available locally,” said Dave Dexheimer, executive director of DCS. “We want to make it as easy as possible to tap into them.”
Susan Johnson, assistant superintendent with the Hannibal public school district, said if parents suspect their child is having a drug-related problem they can contact a school administrator or counselor. If additional services are required, the district will assist in finding that help.
“We have great collaboration with local agencies,” she said.
Jerry Capps of the Healthy Families Project said many agencies are “waiting for people to use us.”
“We’ve got to get the word out that we’re here,” he said.
Dexheimer noted that in the near future a special tab will be produced and distributed by the Courier-Post that details the list of services that area agencies are capable of providing.
Tamara Reed, representing F&M Bank, Riedel Foundation and Rotary Club of Hannibal, says that because not everyone takes the newspaper or has the Internet, efforts should be ongoing by agencies to inform the public of services available.
Dexheimer explained that the 211 Institute is an information source available to the public needing assistance within a specific zip code in the state.