PARENTS RILED BY LACK OF TREATMENT OPTIONS

When daughters ran away, families were warned to leave them on the
street

The parents of some of the hundreds of children who have been lost to
addiction, prostitution and street life in B.C. say the resources
available to get their kids well again are extremely inadequate.

It's not only the absence of youth-specific detox centres and
treatment programs that has parents riled, but certain laws, a
disheartening lack of educational material, and a lack of support from
professionals, they say.

Marion and Greg Staple began losing their daughter Gillian to drugs
and street life when she was 13 years old, after she became the
subject of severe bullying and began experimenting with marijuana and
alcohol.

Gillian was placed in foster care and her parents learned soon after
that she was running away from the home for days at a time and likely
had a pimp.

If the law had allowed them to do so, the Staples would have sought
out their daughter on the streets and taken her to a secure place
where she could not run away and could get the help she needed. But by
this time, Gillian was over 14 and the law says that at that age, a
youth can consent to having sex, can refuse medical or psychological
treatment and cannot be taken anywhere against his or her will.

"We wanted to get her off the street and we didn't have the right to
do that," says Marion Staple. "At 14, they're just too young to be
making these decisions."

Eventually, Gillian was placed at The Maples, a government-run
assessment and treatment centre for teens. Her parents desperately
hoped the staff there would be able to convince Gillian of the perils
of street life and get her off drugs, but instead, Gillian regularly
walked away from the facility to meet her pimp and get high, because
there was nothing to stop her.

"If she had committed a crime, then they could have put her into a
[secure] facility," Marion Staple says.

During this time, the Staples were hunting high and low for a place
that would provide help for their daughter, but continued to come up
empty-handed.

"There are just no facilities," Marion Staple says.

In B.C., there are 86 government-run beds for youths with addictions
at 13 different facilities. But 17 of the beds are for young offenders
only, 12 beds are open only two weeks of the year, and 12 are for
short-term detox only.

Meanwhile, an estimated 30,000 children and youths in B.C. have
substance abuse problems, according to a report commissioned by the
ministry of children and family development.

Gillian Staple, now 16 years old, started a residential therapy and
treatment program in August at a new recovery centre for girls in
rural Alberta.

Like the Staples, Sheila Begg -- the mother of a young heroin addict
- -- says she was astounded when she started looking for places that
could help her daughter recover when she was just 16 years old.

There was no Web site or phone number she could use to find out what
was available and, like the Staples, she ended up with dozens of phone
numbers that led nowhere. (Several detox centres recently coordinated
to have just one phone number for access to all of them.)

"Are you dealing with the ministry of children and families or are you
dealing with the ministry of health?" Marion Staple asks in
frustration.

"There's no coordination. There should be more ways for a parent to
access a Web site or something that has [treatment programs, detox,
parent support groups] all in one spot."

Begg eventually found the phone number for a detox centre in
Vancouver. When she and her daughter first called, they were told
there was at least a two-week wait.

"When they want detox, they need it now," says Begg, whose daughter is
still battling a heroin addiction seven years later.

"It was youth detox we wanted and [a staff member at the centre] said,
'If you can detox her at home, that's best.'"

Begg accepted the advice, took time off work and sat with her
daughter, Johanna, as she shook and vomited through several days of
detox.

But Begg does not have medical training, did not know what to expect
and says there should have been at least a pamphlet or brochure to
help her through the ordeal. Better yet, she says, the health
authority should have a trained nurse who pays daily visits to those
who are helping friends or family detox at home.

Johanna started using heroin again soon after she detoxed the first
time and, despite repeated attempts to get off drugs, has relapsed
several times.

Her mother says part of the problem is that there were very few
treatment programs for Johanna immediately after she detoxed and it
was a long process to get into any of them.

"To get into public programs, you need to be referred by a drug
counsellor. We had to wait two weeks for an appointment with a drug
counsellor," she says.

Johanna eventually tried a public day program, which kicked her out
when she continued using drugs, and then, like the Staples, she and
her mother decided to try a private program.

In Coquitlam, Diane Sowden began losing her young daughter to drugs
and prostitution 10 years ago. The difficulties in finding proper
detox and treatment were the same in the suburbs as they were in the
city, Sowden says.

At one point, Sowden got her daughter into Maple Cottage, a detox
centre in New Westminster, but the teenager was frightened by the
other addicts and left early.

"To me, it is a totally inappropriate facility for a teenage girl,
especially one that's been in the sex trade," Sowden says.

"Most of the clientele are 30-plus-year-old males. It's not a comfort
zone, but that's what we've got."

Sowden says the inability to hold her child or physically take her off
the street was another major roadblock in getting help for her.

The fact that she couldn't grab her own 13-year-old child by the arm
and take her home still makes her voice rise in anger 10 years later.

"When my daughter was 13 years old and she was running around with a
27-year-old man, my husband went and physically grabbed her and pulled
her off the street," Sowden remembers.

"We had the police tell us, 'You do it again and you're going to be
charged with confining a child against their will.'"

Begg, Sowden, and the Staples are all frustrated that even though
medical authorities have taken the leap to consider addiction a health
issue, there are barely any public treatment programs -- especially
for youths -- in the province.

"This four pillars approach is really only a three pillars approach.
The fourth pillar, which is treatment, does not exist," Marion Staple
says.

Over-all, there is little compassion from the provincial government
when it comes to youths who have become drug addicted or exploited by
the sex trade, Begg and the Staples say.

"[Government bureaucrats] don't see the kids. They see that they have
to have six copies of this and they have to do this and that, but they
forget that there are kids there," Marion Staple says.

"They don't get it. That these are real people. We are real people.
These kids are real people.

"There's thousands and thousands of kids out there that are lost."