PARENTS CONCERNED BY YOUTH SURVEY RESULTS

Findings on Alcohol and Drug Use Shock Many

Parent Advisory Council meetings have been dominated over the last few
weeks by concerns surrounding a youth survey done earlier this year.

The survey questioned kids in Grades 6 through 12 about attitudes
toward school, community, home and peers, and their use of alcohol and
other drugs.

Some of the findings, while no different from the results of other
surveys done in B.C. and across Canada, were shocking to parents.

One parent at Whistler Secondary's PAC meeting this week said he was
so concerned he spoke to his kids at length and told them he was
prepared to leave the community if they thought it was a problem.

The survey was done last May and June by the Communities That Care
project. Made up of over 40 community representatives from the police
to the schools, Communities That Care uses an evidence-based program
developed in the U.S. to help communities build positive, healthy
futures for their youth.

The survey revealed that more than two thirds of local youths from
Grade 6 to Grade 12 have used alcohol in their lifetime.

Almost half reported drinking in the 30 days prior to the survey date
and almost a quarter reported smoking dope in the same period.

The survey also found that 59 per cent of youths in Grade 11 had come
to school drunk or high at least once in the previous year.

Overall 24.8 per cent of surveyed students from Whistler had done the
same thing.

The survey, which questioned 355 of the 432 students in those grades,
also showed that there is almost no anti-social behaviour by the
youths in the resort, such as car theft, and that most had a strong
attachment to their parents and their families.

However, one disturbing finding was the belief by students that their
parents would not be that upset if they found out their kids were
using drugs or alcohol.

"This framework gives us a risk and protective factor approach to
preventing problem behaviours," said Deanne Zeidler, co-chair of the
risk and protective factors steering committee for the project.

"This gives us specific information on our community which is linked
to programs that work," Zeidler told parents at Myrtle Philip. "The
most important thing is not that we have the survey results. It is
what we do afterwards.

"We want to move forward and protect our kids."

And what is important here, said Zeidler, is that the results along
with many other pieces of information are giving the community a
picture of what it looks like.

Some parents' felt the survey was invalid because many of the students
they have since spoken to said they treated the survey as a joke.

However, pointed out school trustee Don Brett, while there may be some
surveys that are invalid because of that student approach, the results
are in-line with other surveys done provincially.

"This is totally consistent with the surveys done across B.C.," said
Brett.

Parents at Myrtle Philip's PAC meeting also raised questions about the
survey and the norms it portrays.

One parent pointed out that many parents would offer older children a
drink with dinner. Those students would have answered yes to questions
about using alcohol.

Some students were also very upset that the survey was public as they
had understood the results would be confidential, another parent
pointed out at the Myrtle Philip PAC.

Experts from the U.S. based Channing Bete company, which designed the
program, will be in Whistler next month to help the Communities That
Care group further interpret the survey results and look toward future
planning.