What do we do now?
Clint Eastwood Youth Program offers new drug screening test for teens
Not your child. She gets good grades, mostly As and Bs. She plays volleyball after school, baby sits most Saturdays, and seems to like the youth group at church. Doesn’t she?
Something has changed though; a subtle shift maybe, but you’re her parent, and you notice. Her grades are slipping, and she doesn’t seem as excited about sports. She’s reluctant to get up in the morning, and she’s become irritable — moody with her siblings and with you.
Maybe she’s feeling pressured, overwhelmed by school. Maybe she’s having trouble with a friend. Maybe she’s hanging out with the wrong friends. Maybe it’s just growing pains. Maybe it’s drugs.
Not your child.
But maybe.
Community Hospital Recovery Center’s Clint Eastwood Youth Program can help you find out, with a new drug-screening service designed to help parents deal with their concerns about their teenagers’ possible drug use.
“This test is different from others,” says the hospital’s Suzi Brauner-Tatum, licensed clinical social worker, “in that it is an oral test, administered on the spot to detect — via the saliva — the presence of cocaine, marijuana, opiates, amphetamines, methamphetamines, and PCP. Within 10 minutes, we know whether any of these drugs were used within the past 10 to 12 hours.”
It’s a simple test. The teen slips a sponge into his or her mouth and sucks on it for three minutes, during which it reacts chemically with the saliva. The $50 test includes a consultation with staff that can help parents interpret the results and that provides information, referrals, and options, including strategies to address and monitor drug use and the subsequent steps to take.
“It may seem like a narrow window of time in which to administer the test,” says Brauner-Tatum. “But if your teen comes in at midnight with behavior that indicates possible drug use, you can call us at 8:30 a.m. and we can run the test. Even if test results are negative, this is an opportunity for parents to sit down with a counselor to sort out what’s going on. Something caused you to bring in your child; you still have a problem to figure out.”
If test results are positive, says Brauner-Tatum, then there is a whole new challenge. Maybe a trip to the emergency room is warranted. And certainly there are issues to address and strategies to implement.
“Once the parent understands how to administer and interpret the test, we will sell additional tests at $35,” Brauner-Tatum says. “We can also do a breathalyzer test for alcohol. But our preference is to talk with the family; sometimes this kind of discussion is easier coming from a professional than from a parent. When a third party says, ‘Your behaviors concern me; what do we do about that?’ it can minimize or eliminate emotion and pressure.”
The Clint Eastwood Youth Program at the Community Hospital Recovery Center offers mental health and substance abuse treatment for adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18. For more information or an appointment, please call 373-0924 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
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