By: Deanna Kerkhof
Addiction is objective. Unbiased to race, class, sex, age. White or Black, rich or poor, male or female, young or old, we are all susceptible to opioid addiction. Addressing the opioid epidemic at a population level is essential, but it’s also important to pay close attention to vulnerable populations. Adolescents, due to their tendency to experiment with substance use and their stage of human development,1 are among those most vulnerable to addiction and its adverse consequences. According to the U.S. Adolescent Behavioral Health: In Brief 1 “…millions of adolescents experiment with substance use and engage in behaviors that can affect healthy neurological and psychological development.” Educating adolescents and introducing tighter constraints on opioid prescriptions might help reduce the prevalence of opioid addiction; but that’s not enough. What about the kids who fall through the cracks?
Approximately 68,000 Massachusetts adolescents interviewed prior to September 2009 had used an illicit drug in the past month.1 Even more concerning, some might argue, is that 18,000 adolescent males and 20,000 adolescent females used pain relievers non-medically in the 12 months prior to the interviews.1
Adolescent Behavioral Health: In Brief 1
Of course, these numbers include individuals who may have been experimenting with substance use, but at least 32,000 of them suffered from addiction and did not receive treatment.1 Whether youth are being missed by public health prevention efforts, or education simply isn’t enough to combat societal pressures, young adolescents are falling victim to opioid addiction every day.
At 13 and 14 years old these individuals are still developing. They have yet to graduate high school. They don’t have any credible job experience. God willing they make it into recovery, but what’s next? We throw them back into high school, back into the same environment, and expect them to make better decisions? Or even worse, they attempt to conquer the real world with no education, no experience, and limited life skills. We all know how competitive today’s job market is. It seems as if they’re choosing between the lesser of two evils.
Thankfully though, Massachusetts has introduced a third option – Recovery High Schools.2 Their mission is:
To inspire students to reach their full potential and to prepare them to function successfully in a complex world, while reducing the high rates of relapse associated with teens in recovery, by providing a safe, sober and supportive environment where students and their recovery efforts are understood, valued and fostered.3
According to Walton et al., “particularly for drug users, increasing access to needed resources may be an important additional focus of relapse prevention or aftercare services… Lack of resources is the most potent predictor of posttreatment [sic] drug use and may reflect unmet treatment needs.” 4 Recovery high schools provide access to those needed resources. In turn, they help students avert relapse, and all the while, provide them with a safe environment to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become honorable members of society.
There are currently three recovery high schools in the state of Massachusetts: Northshore Education Consortium in Beverly,5 Springfield Academy For Excellence (SAFE) Recovery High School,6 and William J. Ostiguy High School in Boston.7
Map of Recovery High Schools in Massachusetts
Massachusetts is small, but you can see here that many residents would have to travel long distances to access recovery high schools. This highlights our first problem – accessibility. Recovery high schools have shown to positively impact the lives of recovering youth. I recently attended the William J. Ostiguy recovery high school graduation ceremony. Nine students, all with different backgrounds and experiences with alcoholism and addiction, graduated with their high school diplomas.
During the ceremony the students had the opportunity to command the crowd. Each graduate took the podium (except for one) and shared their unique journey from childhood, to addiction, to recovery, and everything in between. Throughout their speeches they identified the keys to their recovery. For each student it was different – sober houses, family, friends – except for one similarity, Ostiguy high. Ostiguy allowed these individuals to get a quality education and maintain their sobriety; an achievement none of them felt would have been possible at a regular high school. We need to fight for the expansion of these services so that all youth in recovery have access to this life changing opportunity.
With the staggering number of adolescent addicts in the state of Massachusetts, particularly in the city of Boston, you might expect a sizeable graduating class. In reality though, Ostiguy High’s 2014 graduating class consisted of only nine students. This accentuates the second problem – awareness. Not enough Massachusetts’ parents and youth are aware of the existence of recovery high schools. The government has begun to rise to the challenge by putting in place some of the tools necessary to seriously combat this issue in an effective and responsible fashion.8 Now it’s time that we do our part. We need to rally for improved accessibility through the expansion of services, and spread the word about the resources that are currently available for recovering youth in Springfield, Beverly, Boston and the surrounding communities.
Additional Resources –
Recovery high schools are just one of the many substance abuse services available to Massachusetts’ youth. For a comprehensive list of services refer to the Massachusetts Youth & Young Adult Substance Abuse Services Directory. 9
References
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Adolescent Behavioral Health: In Brief. September, 2009. http://www.samhsa.gov/data/StatesInBrief/2k9/OASTeenReportMA.pdf. Accessed June 8, 2014.
- N.a. Massachusetts Recovery High School. N.d. http://www.massrecoveryhs.org/documents/RHSFAQfinal.pdf. Accessed June 9, 2014.
- Bureau of Substance Abuse Services. Massachusetts Recovery High Schools. N.d. http://www.massrecoveryhs.org. Accessed June 9, 2014.
- Walton MA, Blow FC, Bingham CR, Chermack ST. Individual and social/environmental predictors of alcohol and drug use 2 years following substance abuse treatment. Addictive Behaviors. 2003; 28; 627-642.
- Stirling Technologies. Northshore Education Consortium. N.d. http://www.nsedu.org. Accessed June 9, 2014.
- N.a. Recovery High School: A Campus of the Springfield Academy for Excellence. N.d. http://www.sps.springfield.ma.us/schoolsites/recovery/. Accessed June 9, 2014.
- Ostiguy High School. William J. Ostiguy High School. 2014. http://ostiguyhigh.org. Accessed June 9, 2014.
- Schoenberg S. Massachusetts Senate unveils bill to combat opioid abuse. Mass Live. May 8, 2014. http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/05/massachusetts_senate_unveils_b.html. Accessed June 6, 2014.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, Office of Youth and Young Adult Services. Massachusetts Youth & Young Adults Substance Abuse Services Directory. N.d. http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/substance-abuse/oyyas-directory-digital.pdf. Accessed June 8, 2014.