SCHOOLS TO GET DRUG ABUSE COUNSELORS

Program Targets Hard-Hit Areas

SOMERSET - Schools in an area of the state hit hard by substance abuse will
soon have counselors available to help students who have problems with drugs.

The federally funded Operation UNITE program will pay for 31 counselors to
work in its 29-county area of Eastern and south-central Kentucky.

The counselors will try to intervene in cases where students are using
drugs, and will work with students who have problems because of substance
abuse in their families.

"I hope that this will be someone that these kids can turn to for a little
guidance or help," said Clay County Superintendent Doug Adams. "We have so
many children living with these drugs."

Providing counselors is part of a $1.6 million education initiative by
UNITE. The plan also includes reimbursing school districts up to $2,000 to
pay for drug testing for employees and students, assessing how the schools
are providing anti-drug education and helping with improvements, training
teachers to incorporate drug-abuse prevention information into les-sons,
and providing teaching materials if necessary.

The goals are to create a sustained effort to teach children not to use
drugs in the first place, or, if they are using them, to turn away before
they become addicted, said Karen Engle, executive director of UNITE.

UNITE stands for Unlawful Narcotics Investigation, Treatment and Education.
U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers, R-Somerset, got $8 million set aside early
in 2003 to create the program, and has since gotten an additional $16 million.

As the name indicates, the goal is to increase drug investigations, provide
more treatment for addicts, and boost-anti-drug education efforts in
Rogers' district, where he and others have described the level of substance
abuse as epidemic. Abuse of prescription medication has caused overdose
deaths and has driven up the crime rate, and the region has a growing
problem with meth-amphetamine abuse.

So far, UNITE's law enforcement programs have gotten the lion's share of
the money. That was by design, in order to get the attention of drug
dealers and the public with a crackdown on street-level drug trafficking,
said Engle.

The agency has hired more than 30 investigators. They have opened more than
1,200 cases, arrested more than 500 people, and seized more than 10,000
pills and more than eight pounds of meth.

But UNITE has also helped establish drug courts in the region in order to
provide more addicts with counseling, and has worked to educate the public
about the drug problem and to get citizens involved in tackling it through
community coalitions. The plan to expand anti-drug education in schools is
a significant boost in UNITE's education efforts.

UNITE's territory includes some of the poorest counties in Kentucky. Some
schools do little anti-drug education, and officials said they had no
employees certified to counsel students about drug problems, Engle said.

The people hired to help students under the new UNITE program must be
certified to counsel on substance-abuse dependency, or be working to get
that certification, or have five years' experience counseling chemically
dependent clients. The federal program will provide the money for the jobs,
at an annual salary of $28,000 each plus benefits, but the school systems
will hire the people.

Making the counselors school employees will mean they won't have to have a
parent's permission to talk to a student, according to UNITE.

The first counselors are likely to be in place after the Christmas break,
Engle said.

There are 44 school districts in the 29 counties covered by UNITE, so some
will have to share a drug counselor. In several cases there will be one
counselor to cover two counties, while some other counties will get two
counselors.

Engle said UNITE officials looked at population, the size of counties and
other factors in deciding where to put counselors.

Adams, the Clay County superintendent, said that having a substance-abuse
counselor will be a plus if the schools hire the right people. But having
just one -- as the plan calls for in Clay County -- will obviously limit
how much the counselor can accomplish, Adams said.

He compared it to the story about throwing a starfish back into the sea:
"It made a difference for that one."

Engle said UNITE started with 31 counselors to see how the program works.
Once officials assess the impact, more counselors could be hired if
necessary, she said.

"I anticipate this program to grow," she said.