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Thursday, November 1, 2007

95% of Youth Summit Participants Feel Supported by Family

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    About 50 students from area schools participating in a Youth Leadership Summit answered questions about their lives in three different surveys.
    The young people were from Estancia, Moriarty and Mountainair middle and high schools as well as East Mountain High School. Each school chose which youths to send and each was allowed to send up to six students, according to Billie Clark, programs manager for the Torrance County Project Office.
    The goal of the Sept. 20 youth summit was to build leaders who will help prevent illegal and unhealthy behaviors in other young people.
    "Since the goal of the summit is to develop peer leaders," some of the youths come from groups within the schools like Teens Need Teens, an Estancia group that requires members to sign contracts to remain drug- and alcohol-free, Clark said.
    In the YLS Survey, more than half of the youths said they had not been involved in a drug- or alcohol-free youth organization during the past year.
    Survey statistics were interpreted by Mark Dyke, an associate professor who teaches research and statistics at New Mexico Highlands University. Dyke is also a former Torrance County office manager for protective services for the state Children, Youth and Families Department.
    Another survey was called the Assets Checklist. Answers revealed:
   

About 95 percent of the young people said they felt loved and supported by their families.
   

About 54 percent said they had regular in-depth conversations with their parents.
   

About 33 percent have frequent conversations with an adult who is not their parent.
   

About 80 percent said the atmosphere at school is caring and encouraging.
    Some responses from a lunchtime discussion survey at the youth summit revealed the following about the abuse of alcohol, drugs and tobacco:
    Young people said substance abuse is happening in several places, including at home with and without parents, at parties and at school. Drugs are hidden in ballpoint pens, in compact mirrors and in backpacks.
    Young people said possible causes of this problem include a desire to get rid of emotional and physical pain, and that kids live what they see.
    The students also said they choose to abuse those substances because "life sucks," to look cool, because of boredom and to get back at society.
    Some other statistics from the YLS Survey:
   

Although 100 percent of those responding said alcohol- and drug-free youth events helped them become aware of health risks associated with drug and alcohol use, only about 45 percent said those same events helped them remain drug- and alcohol-free.
   

While 36 students responded that nothing encouraged them to use drugs or alcohol, seven said that something had encouraged them to use these substances, including friends, strangers, dealers, looking cool or movies.
    To a question requiring a written response about how to improve the Youth Leadership Summit, three youths said they wanted to listen to speakers who had been involved with drugs and alcohol.
    "They want people who have hit bottom with drugs and alcohol to tell their stories," Dyke said. "That's certainly something that we want to figure out, how to bring that to the conference. They don't want a lot of people telling them what to do."