HELP PLAN FOR PANICKING PARENTS

Palmerston North: Parents urgently need education so
they can help their children who get involved with
drugs such as methamphetamines, drug education agency
Drug-Arm Palmerston North chairman Lew Findlay says.

Mr Findlay said most middle-class parents were shocked when they found
their teenage children were involved with drugs.

The police anti-drug programme Dare (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)
has just been given $10,000 by the Palmerston North Rotary Club to
start parent education courses in Manawatu.

Mr Findlay said parents were desperate for help.

"We get calls every week from parents, and they're distraught. They've
found stuff in their kid's room, their kid has been suspended from
school, or they've had a call from their child's friends' parents
telling them about drug involvement," Mr Findlay said.

"They basically find out by accident, and they haven't got a clue what
to do."

Drug-Arm did some education work for families but resources were
meagre.

"We've sent out 400 information packs to worried parents in the past
four months alone. Probably about one-third of those families come in
to Drug-Arm to talk to us," Mr Findlay said.

The first stages of drug use were often picked up when families
noticed things going missing - taken by the child to sell for drugs.

Little electrical appliances that were not used often, CDs, jewellery,
stuff with immediate resale value and packs of coffee were examples Mr
Findlay gave.

"If things aren't checked then, there'll be a mysterious burglary and
bigger things taken."

Mr Findlay said the hardest thing to do was not destroy family
members' trust in each other.

"Much better to educate kids about saying no to drugs in the first
place. That's what the Dare programme is doing - getting them when
they're 8 to 10. That's the right age, because kids who get into drugs
are 12, 13, 14," Mr Findlay said.

Palmerston North police youth education officer Bob Filbee said Dare
parents' education would be an eight-hour programme, held at weekends
or over several weeks at night.

"We know a lot of parents panic when they find their kids are into
drugs. They beat themselves up and ask where they've gone wrong," Mr
Filbee said.

"This programme will give advice; teach you how to talk to your kids
about drugs; make experts available to talk with you."