- [Presenter] This program is made possible through support from the Wyoming County Opioid Settlement Committee.

(helicopter blades whirring) (bright music) From the Dietrich Theater in downtown Tunkhannock, WVIA and the Wyoming County Opioid Settlement Committee present "Wyoming County Voices: Prevention Starts In Our Schools."

And now, moderator Julie Sidoni - Thank you so much for being here with us.

I am WVIA's Julie Sidoni, here to lead an important conversation called "Wyoming County Voices: "Prevention Starts In Our Schools."

For the show, we've gathered educators, community leaders, and public health advocates to talk about the opioid crisis here in Wyoming County and about how education can mean early prevention in the fight against opioid abuse.

On this panel are professionals who work with young people every day in Wyoming County School Districts, and I'd love to kick off this discussion by having them introduce themselves to you.

We will start with you, Cammie.

Thank you so much for being here.

People might recognize her from the former panel discussion that we did here in Wyoming County.

It's great to have you back.

Go ahead and let people know who you are.

- Thank you.

I'm Cammie Anderson.

I'm with Robinson Counseling Center Children's Service Center, and I am here representing the Tunkhannock Area School District.

I am their Drug and Alcohol Prevention Education Coordinator for the past 35 years.

- [Julie] Wonderful.

Thanks.

Go ahead.

- My name is Brian Carney.

I am the elementary principal in the Lackawanna Trail School District.

Building is K-6.

- [Julie] All right.

Thank you for being here.

- I am Stephanie Giancini.

I am with the Tunkhannock Area School District, and I am their trauma counselor.

- [Julie] All right.

And Amie.

- I'm Amie Tallarico.

I'm the director of Special Ed at Lackawanna Trail.

I work with Brian, and I also work with students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care.

- Wonderful.

Thank you all for being here, your time and expertise.

I'd like to start with you, Brian, something that you said just a few minutes ago about the scope of this problem.

You think that this is the worst it's been in a while?

This is shocking to you?

- Yeah, so I think, you know, from a country standpoint, I think we're experiencing the greatest crisis we've had with our opioid pandemic.

What we're seeing in schools and how it has changed in my 25 years in education are the effects it's having on our youngest children.

It's the effects that start at home and how that is relating to our students and the issues that they're dealing with.

As Amie said, whether we're talking about foster students, whether we're talking about students experiencing homelessness, these are issues that are affecting those students, and if students don't hit those important marks in child development, the effects are everlasting for them.

So I think we are, you know, on the front line of defense at this right now.

- When I first started the research for this, I was sort of assuming that we're talking about the student opioid issue, but you've all been enlightening me about the many ways that opioids can affect a student.

How so?

- So not their use so much, but a lot of our students, a lot of the students that I now work with, and this has also changed in 35 years, is I go to younger grades 'cause we have a lot of kids who are growing up in homes, whether their parents are in active addiction, incarcerated, or maybe have lost their lives to overdose because of opioids.

So there's a lot happening there.

So what we try to do is intervene early to help those kids and give them as much support as they need, you know, to be successful later on.

- Is there an age where you think this is appropriate or not appropriate?

I mean, I'll give that to anybody.

Is there an age that you think is really important to get this message through?

- I will just start with where I start in kindergarten, - [Julie] Kindergarten.

- talking about medicine safety.

So we just talk early on about, you know, why it's important to take the medicine that belongs to us and you know, get it from a trusted adult, our mom, dad, whoever's allowed to give it to us.

You know, to move up from that, we talk a lot about skill building.

so I'll talk about feelings and how it's important to get those out, but all of that will build later on.

So I don't believe that there's an age that's too young to have a conversation as long as they're age appropriate.

- Do you have a different answer, anyone?

- No, I would agree.

I think, from the prevention side, as you said, when you start looking at this, you thought you were gonna be thinking of our students that could potentially be drug users, but really a lot of the things we said were managing how to teach children to manage when they're living in a home with someone who's potentially in active addiction.

So that is part of it, and that can't start too early: prevention, kids understanding what they might be seeing, so that they could report when they need help.

- Could you explain trauma informed?

We're gonna hear that term a little bit, trauma informed, and I understand you're a trauma counselor.

What exactly does that mean here?

- So, excuse me.

Trauma informed is the approach that schools are really taking to look at the individual as a whole and whether or not they're seeing signs of potential trauma and then acting accordingly and trying to get them connected with resources like myself or Cammie or someone else who, you know, would be best appropriate for whatever trauma they've experienced.

But it comes down to what happened to this child as opposed to what's wrong with them and being more empathetic and looking through it in that lens as opposed to maybe punitive and trying to get them to just fall in line.

- We say that again, "what happened to a child "as opposed to what is wrong with the child?"

Do you think that's a difference from where we used to be?

- [Amie] Yeah.

- Yeah, I think that's the biggest change is that we have to look at that.

What effects does the home life have on the child, and, you know, how does that relate when they're coming into the, you know, educational setting, and that's something that certainly has changed.

- In many cases, it is the school resource officer that becomes the first line of defense in figuring out whether there's something wrong in a situation, and we got to speak with one a little bit ago.

Check this out.

- I am Tunkhannock Area School Districts Director of Safety and Security.

Prior to this job, I was a Pennsylvania state trooper, and it is quite an adjustment to go from a law enforcement every day in a patrol car responding to calls to now you are on a campus and managing buildings and juveniles.

- It takes a special kind of person to be an officer in a school environment and that should match the approach in the different kind of criminal justice system that exists for juveniles versus adults.

- I try to get across to our students that I am not here to hurt them.

I'm actually here to help them.

- How can we take this misstep, this bad decision by this student, and turn it around and put that student in an encouraging way on a path to positivity?

- You have to really understand the factors that influence student behavior, whether it's their peers, social media aspects, factors that are taking place outside of school.

So it's really good to have a baseline of knowing your students, and that way you can tell if something may be off that day, and you want to have a deeper conversation with that student.

- The way you want to deal with students is in a more gentle way: gentle but firm, and you want accountability, but you want the whole tone to be about turning that life.

- I look for certain types of things like anxiety or if the student is defensive that day, what they're saying.

It could also be their paraverbal communications: their tone, volume, and cadence of the way they're talking that is different than the norm; their gestures, how close they're letting you get to them.

If you know your kids, you can pick up on those things.

- If we focus on substance use and substance use disorder at times among our children in the school environment, we can also concurrently address a lot of the other problems, things like gangs, things like depression, teen suicide.

- There are a lot of professionals within the county that I can use as a resource such as law enforcement, also guidance counselors in school along with the administration and also our drug and alcohol counselor that we have in the school here, and we come up with the best plan to help that student out.

- They're gonna get the help they need, and we're gonna plug the parents into that and have this holistic approach to turn that life around and put it back on a positive course.

(gentle music) - That got me thinking a little bit about parental involvement, and I'm wondering if it happens where parents don't want to know, parents aren't paying enough attention, parents don't want you involved in this familial situation.

Can you talk a little bit about the challenges of being the first person to spot a problem?

- From my perspective, I think what you find is denial first.

You have parent denial.

With a child or with, you know, a young adolescent who's using opioids or drugs or alcohol in any way is, you know, that's a hard thing for a parent to discuss and to hear from the school district saying, "Listen, these are some concerns we have," denial is usually the first part of it.

- Yeah, I think all four of you probably have something to say about this one.

- And I think absolutely right when we look at denial, but then we also have parents who may have a lot of guilt and they may also have a lot of their own issues which they're trying to keep covered up.

So there's some of that that we definitely face.

- Yeah, what happens in that situation?

What can be done there?

- I think, well we have a SAP program in our school, and I think that that helps to mitigate some of that because things can be reported anonymously.

So, you know, maybe the parent doesn't have to be mad at a particular individual, or the student doesn't have to be mad at a certain individual for reporting anything, and it's presented in a way that it's a way to help and connect the family or the child with resources.

So that's one approach that our school district does really well with, with connecting with parents and having those difficult discussions.

- [Cammie] I... - [Julie] Yeah.

- I would agree with Brian that we do sometimes see families that are denying that there's a problem, but I think what Mr.

Peters said in that clip was that we can know our families really well, and we need to try to have a relationship from the start where families are comfortable with the school.

A lot of times when I'm talking to a family, and they don't want to tell me what's going on in their situation, it's because they have had a negative experience with the school in the past, or they think that they're gonna be reported for something or whatever.

They have that fear.

So we need to make sure that we're approachable to families from the beginning.

- It does sound like fear is a big part of that.

- Yeah, definitely.

- For sure.

- And I think, kind of like you said, I think those relationships with our families help break down those walls of denial, and they may get a call from a school counselor or from myself or from a SAP team member.

So the more they get those, we really have to work on breaking down those walls.

Parents shouldn't hear about SAP, I always say, 'cause their kid - Tell me what SAP stands for.

- So SAP is Student Assistance Program.

- Okay.

- And it is a team that is really there to kind of catch kids that may fall through the cracks.

So we have, you know, a top percentage of our kids that may have issues that we all know about.

They're already referred.

They're referred to Stephanie and myself or someone else in the district.

These are kids that are kind of like bubbling under the surface, but to have a phone call from a SAP team and say, "Your student, well, your child was referred "because we think there's something wrong."

can take a parent, you know, back a little.

So I always say, I think, good communication before that.

So parents understand that this is a culture in our school.

This is here to help our kids, is one of the things that can help break down those walls of denial.

- What about training because I'm thinking now, let's say I'm a second grade teacher, and I am fully prepared to teach this class, but we're talking about medical information, we're talking about psychological information.

This is a lot for someone to handle, I would imagine.

So what kind of training exists on this level?

- Yeah, I think from a school perspective, we utilize area agencies, whether it's children and youth, whether it's crisis intervention centers, to come in and really talk to our teachers and inform them.

Of course, it's overwhelming at times, but I think one thing that school districts do a great job of and has gotten so much better is really having a strong policy in place at the board level, dealing with drugs and alcohol, but not just the penalty phase of that, the therapeutic component that comes with it, and how do we treat kids?

You know, we're all in education.

Our number one goal is to support that child however we could, and it takes a, you know, the old saying, it takes a village, and it really does take a village of all of us coming together to support a child.

- Oh, go ahead.

- I was gonna add.

I mean really coming toward all of these things with the trauma-informed lens is part of our professional development, especially for new teachers.

And like Brian said, we do depend on a lot of our agencies in Wyoming County or other counties, but also just, we have a team within the school that is trained in trauma-informed practices because we want like that brand new second grade teacher who hasn't experienced this or seen that before to be able to make those connections and know where to go.

- Is this a universal thing, or is Wyoming County doing a very good job in its schools?

- Well, I think Wyoming County is doing a very good job actually because we do have resources like Children's Service Center, our SAP team.

I mean, I work closely with the County on a lot of different points, even as far as like juvenile probation, things like that.

So I think Wyoming County does it well, but, I mean, SAP is a universal thing in Pennsylvania for sure.

- We talked about school resource officers, but school nurses are obviously part of this.

Do you all have school nurses?

- Yes.

- Mm-hmm.

- And do you believe that is an important part of this boots on the ground kind of mentality?

- Oh, yes.

- Mm-hmm.

- [Brian] Definitely.

- There are school districts that do not have school nurses and now share them, correct?

- Yeah, there's districts who share between buildings.

We're very fortunate in the Lackawanna Trail School District to have a high school CSN-certified school nurse as well as an elementary nurse but, again, I think at times, they're your first line of defense.

They're hearing things or seeing things from the child, and they're reporting that back to us so that then we're able to come together and make a decision, as Amie said, with our team, so many heads coming together to deal with that.

- [Julie] And, go ahead.

- Well, I think it goes back to what the school resource officer said, "knowing your kids," and I think that is also what makes these schools in Wyoming County special.

I think I see that where people go above and beyond.

So nurses, if they know that baseline, they know when kids are off.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We had the chance to interview some school nurses as well.

Here's that story.

(gentle music) - In a situation where I suspect that there is substance abuse, things that would alert me would be if they have any signs of intoxication, if they were slurring their speech, if they're appearing sleepy, off balance.

- I may have a student who's coming in fatigue, irritable, stomach ache, headache, maybe anxiety.

- Some things that a teacher might also report to me is if they're noticing that their behavior has changed, their grades aren't what they used to be.

- I think absenteeism is one of the biggest indicators.

These are the kids that aren't in school for some reason.

They have a hard time getting here.

There's no one at home pushing them.

So it's the kids that we're not seeing for lengths of time rather them continuously presenting in my office.

(gentle music) - And then some other symptoms that we might notice as a school nurse would be if they're having symptoms of withdrawal, if they're having nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

We might notice that there are some behavioral changes with a student.

They might be acting out.

- It's more patterns that we see, and I think the kids keep each other accountable with some of those patterns that we like to educate them early on and how to identify it with their peers and how to report it.

- They may not be as involved with their normal group of friends in their activities that they normally do, maybe isolating themselves.

They may have inappropriate knowledge for their age about drugs or sex, and those would be red flags.

(gentle music) The staff within the building, dealing with students, we do work as a team.

So if one person is noticing something, perhaps a teacher sees something in a student, they may go and see the school counselor and ask them to speak to the student, or if they think that there's a health issue related to any of this, they would come to me.

- I definitely do feel like we are proactive both through our education and some of the programs we have set up here, like our SAP team.

Although I see some physical symptoms through one individual lens, it really takes the whole group of us to put the pieces together to really try to figure out what's going on.

(gentle music) - I think, more and more, there are children that are exposed in numerous ways, whether it's in their households, their friends, other students at school.

It does seem like a lot of the kids are trying to act older than their age.

That's why it's important for us to recognize that promoting prevention, even as young as our elementary students, because they may be influenced by what they see other kids doing or what they're asking them to do.

(gentle music) - Pretty shot of the downtown there.

You talk about prevention, and when I hear prevention, I think, I'm in a classroom, "Don't do drugs; don't drink alcohol, et cetera."

but I'm hearing from all of you that prevention is much, much different than that.

How so, Cammie?

- So I think prevention is pretty much everything that we are doing.

So prevention is... That education piece is a cornerstone of what prevention is.

That's important for our kids to know the dangers.

We tell them that, but there's so much more to it.

So there is that connection to the school and to the community.

There is building resiliency, which is, you know, what Stephanie helps with.

When we look at trauma, how do we get through that trauma: coping skills.

It is celebrating, you know, successes.

So when our kids achieve greatness, you know, we have to celebrate that with them, but then, when there's failures, we need to help support them.

So it really is all those protective factors that we put into place.

- You're headed on a trip, right?

Skills, USA?

Yes, I am, I hear the school is involved in, it's some sort of a competition, and, I'm sorry, I don't know what Skills USA is.

- It really is about our trades and building that skills department of kids or our CTE, CTC schools.

Those kind of programs go.

So we have a team going.

It's our Quiz Ball team, and they'll be going to nationals.

So I was approached.

What does that have to do with prevention?

And that was really what made me think about this.

Everything, everything, because everything we do is prevention.

It isn't just standing in front of a classroom and saying, "Don't do drugs."

It's everything else.

It's that connection to kids and, like I said, celebrating them.

- What about adults that are not parental figures or grandparent figures?

Or, you know, how important are adults in a child's life if they're not in that household?

That's for anyone really.

(panel members laughing) - I think it's huge to have someone outside of the house that students can go to talk to who is not gonna be judgmental, someone who that they can go and have that connection with, whether it's a teacher or a counselor or a coach who sees them, understands them, and they feel comfortable with, so that if something is going on, they have that point person that they can go to, and they can start having those conversations to be able to figure out what they need to do to either, you know, help them or protect themselves from any situation that they're in.

- I've heard you talk about resiliency.

What does that mean to you in this subject, in this topic?

What does a resilient child mean to you?

- I think we need to build them because it's not something that we are just born with.

We need to have the skills taught to us.

We need to have the confidence in ourself that we're able to weather the storm, whatever it may be.

And that's part of what I do.

So my students who I work with on my caseload have either experienced some sort of crisis or a trauma, and they need to be able to build the skill sets to deal with it in a healthy way.

So, of course, one thing that people do to cope with stuff is to use drugs and drink and use opioids.

What can they do so that they learn the skills that they can get through whatever it is that they're dealing with, so building the resiliency to be able to weather that and to come out on the other side and know.

"If I was to be in another situation like this, "I can deal with it," and have that confidence in themselves.

- And is it safe to say that if a student sees that activity, they're more likely to repeat it?

And I'd heard you talk, Brian, about familial drug use or even if the student doesn't seem to be interested, if that's something that they're absorbing all the time.

- I think it's something that if a child is growing up and experiencing that at home, then the likelihood that they are gonna follow down that path that they've watched for most of their lives, then that's a high likelihood that that will happen, and I think, you know, for us, the piece is we have to be the voice for the child.

We have to be the one that, as Cammie said, not just up in front of the class saying, "Don't do drugs.

Don't drink alcohol," but really immerse ourselves with that child.

On a daily basis, it's a reminder, and I think schools have a great influence on that, a great positive influence, and having those adults, you know, we've all had people that we could connect with in our lives.

Very important in a school to have a child connected with a teacher that they had a great experience with.

So they know that they have a safe place to go all the time.

- Anecdotally, do you hear from students you've had in the past?

Anyone?

You say, "Oh yeah!"

(laughs) - [Cammie] Yeah.

- They call and say thank you or you... - [Cammie] Absolutely.

- Got me on the right path?

- Yes.

You know, I wish there were a lot more, but I do get messages from my kids, sorry, my former students.

- [Julie] You can call 'em your kids.

- Oh, they are my kids, who, you know, tell me... One I just got was a Facebook message.

"You're never gonna believe "I'm up every day at seven o'clock at work.

"Can you believe this?"

So, you know, so it's like, yeah.

So, we do, and I'm sure we all do.

- [Brian] Yeah.

And I think it's the joy of being an educator is that you hear back from those students and the ones that hopefully you guided them from one path down another path to make right choices.

- Amie, how does all this intersect with mental health?

It's not always a mental health issue, I would imagine, but is it, in many cases, there's a mental health component to opioid use?

- Sure.

Yeah, it can be.

So, again, not just for the student, if they were a user, but for the impact on the family if someone in the home is using opioids.

When we were kind of talking earlier, I talked about family separation, and a lot of times that's a huge stressor.

That's a big traumatic experience for a child.

So if a parent is, you know, incarcerated or something like that, that is gonna be huge for that child, very traumatic, and the school is really gonna need to step up and provide for that student.

We want to make sure they have stability, that they're not bouncing around in multiple school districts because of that.

Often we can see family members take on children who were not prepared to do that.

So grandparents often, they've already raised their children.

So now they're doing it again in a whole other decade.

(laughs) So we need to support them.

That's difficult.

Just things like that.

You know, when someone's using opioids or other drugs or alcohol in the home, they could be exposing children to a lot more than just the actual drug use itself but a lot of other unsafe situations and a lot of instability in that home.

So, you know, we have to be that place of stability, and we have to be ready to help students with those traumatic experiences first by identifying that they've even occurred, but also, you know, the impact after that.

- How did COVID change all of this?

I'm not even going to ask if it did, because I imagine that it did.

How did it change all of this?

- So what I have seen in the six years is an increase in family issues that are occurring and what our children are experiencing, and I think it was during that time when we were all home.

Parents who may have, you know, used alcohol, as an example, prior.

Maybe that increased.

Children didn't have a place to go.

The safe place for a lot of children is school.

It's those six and a half hours or seven hours they spend with us each day.

They didn't have that.

So I think what we see now is an increase in mental health issues in schools, and I think it goes back and relates to that.

- Yeah, during that time, we saw an increase in hospitalizations, and we've seen that really pretty steady in the past six years or so, and I'm talking children hospitalized for mental health concerns.

- [Julie] Wow.

- Are you seeing that as well in your work?

- Yeah, I think one of the fears we all had during COVID was nobody had eyes on those kids.

You know, we didn't have eyes on them, and now we do see a lot of increase in mental health, poor coping, so a lot more drug use because of the fact that they aren't developing those coping skills when they needed to.

- We are obviously focusing on opioids, but other drugs, alcohol obviously, a big part of this topic, and we got to speak with a mother and son who dealt with alcohol addiction, and this is how they handled that.

Take a look.

(gentle music) - Deep down, the first time I drank, I knew it was an issue I think, at my core, because I remember drinking the first time and thinking, "This is like, I want to do this every day.

"I want to feel... "I don't want to do this every day, "but I want to feel this way all the time."

- I did see some mental health things going on, like a depression, but I didn't realize that he was dealing with that through the use of alcohol.

And I think that peer pressure of, you know, doing this in high school makes it okay.

- You meet people in high school that are people you probably wouldn't normally associate with that maybe do associate with that stuff, but I don't think I realized the severity of the issue until I was probably 21 or 22.

I was going to a lot of parties with friends that were like in college and stuff, and I had a great time.

That's the other thing too is it starts fun; it does.

I struggle with social situations, and I found that if you put three or six beers in me, I could talk to anybody.

I could talk to the most attractive chick in the bar.

I could talk to strangers, and I was fun.

- I think he used that as coping skills, which many people do use it as a coping mechanism.

- I drank usually because I didn't feel good emotionally or mentally or sometimes even physically, or sometimes I was just bored.

So I called my mom and kind of explained to her, like, "Hey, I think I have a drinking problem."

(gentle music) - It's been a lot of AA meetings, visiting in facilities where he has been in rehab several times.

- Because I would always look at these people that were worse than me, and I would go, "I'm not that bad.

"So maybe my issue isn't quite as bad as theirs.

"Maybe it's not an issue at all."

- I reached out to people within our school system, drug and alcohol people.

Children's Service Center has a branch of the Robinson Center, you know, that has a drug and alcohol program.

- You know, I went to rehab the first time and the second time and then the third time.

You get tired of letting your family down and letting everyone in your life down.

The third time I had went, I was like, "I can't believe I did it again."

(gentle music) If my parents had kind of said, "You need to do this on your own right now," I wouldn't have blamed them.

There's only so long you can sit and watch someone continue to destroy their life before you say, "I can't watch you do this anymore "because I love you too much."

- Everybody has somebody that they love that has struggled.

There is help out there.

You just have to like find it and talk to people.

- I think it's important for people to know they're not alone.

- We learn, we share, and you can relate.

You know, there might be just that one thing that touches somebody that like, "I'm not gonna live like this.

"I'm gonna turn my life around and do great things."

(gentle music) - I think what struck me about that story in particular was the, he admitted, "I had to do this a number of times for this to work."

So I wanted to talk a little bit about once you've identified a student or a family, this is not just a conversation and done.

Tell me the process this takes.

- So, I will 'cause one of the things he said that really resonated is I hear from a lot of people who have entered recovery was that, "For the first time, "I felt comfortable in my own skin."

He didn't say those words, but it's exactly what he meant, like I could talk to people.

So, when we're trying to take that away from someone, we are taking away a new identity, a best friend, that comfort level.

We're taking all of that away from them.

- The alcohol, you mean?

When you take alcohol?

- Well, anything.

The drug.

When we're taking a drug away.

- The substance.

- Yes, the substance.

It becomes their best friend.

You know, it is speaking to them.

It is making them like this, this comfortable, "I'm the life of the party."

- A better version of myself.

- A better version of myself, absolutely.

So, yeah, when we talk to parents, I feel terrible sometimes because they think is the magic that's gonna happen.

He or she is gonna go away, and they're gonna come back, and life is gonna be good again.

Or the same thing.

I talk to my students a lot when their parents get into recovery.

When they go into a treatment center, one of the things we have to work on is the fact that that shoe can drop again.

And we need to be prepared for that either side.

And then what do we do?

Hopefully we go back down that road again.

So if it's a, you know, a young person, we'll try to get them back in that treatment center, and it may take two or three times.

And for kids whose parents are doing this two or three times, it means that they're let down a lot.

So we have to work with them until hopefully mom and dad get it.

- [Julie] Hmm.

- I think from a mental health perspective, we really have to work in tandem with drug and alcohol because, like you said, it could happen again, or they could be put in those situations, or they may find new lows because of this.

So they have to be able to build the skills to be able to, you know, cope with that situation or the new situations that they get from recovery.

- I was also struck by the fact that he himself made the call to his mom to say, "I need some help here."

Is that unusual from your experience?

- I think in the few experiences I've had with the older students where the student was the drug user, a lot of times it's friends that go to the parents.

So you kind of alluded to that, and I think the school nurses did as well where, you know, we do want to also educate our students when their friends need help.

So I think, in my experience, that's been a little bit more common, but I think, you know, we want kids to have all of the resources so they know who to go to.

- [Julie] Your peers are everything at this age.

- Yeah.

- Right, I think the peer interaction is so important.

One, who your friends are.

What choices are they making?

What choices are you making?

But also educating our students that if you see someone who's struggling, please go to an adult, go to the school nurse, go to the guidance counselor, come to the main office, speak to us so that we can get that child help, and we'll have those difficult conversations with the families as well.

- But the student doesn't have to.

- That's right.

- No, and I think what's important to remember is if it doesn't work that time, we have planted a seed because if it takes three or four times, we're probably better off starting when they're younger.

So, - Right.

- we plant that seed.

- I think it's also important that we have a good return-to-school plan because it could take multiple times.

So if a student is gonna be somewhere for 30 days, we need to make sure they come back with support and knowing, like you said, that other shoe could drop again, and they may go out more than one time because that's really inconsistent for their education.

So, you know, we have to have a plan there that we're not adding that additional stressor when they return.

- Are students more likely to abuse, I say, heavy drugs or, you know, bigger drugs so to speak, if they are already abusing alcohol?

Does it always land down that path or not necessarily?

- No, it doesn't always, but I think it's an easy transition.

We have already opened ourselves up to that world.

So we're already, you know, telling those lies to the people that we care about.

That becomes very normal.

So, yeah, it doesn't mean it's gonna... I always say that.

You know, someone smoking, you know, vaping THCas, doesn't mean they're gonna shoot heroin.

Do we kind of cross lines though?

Absolutely.

So it can happen.

- Yep, for sure.

- We talked a little bit.

Amie, you are the one who brought up grandparents raising grandchildren, and I know that there is a group here in Wyoming County talking about that, which you don't hear about that often.

So we spoke with the grandparents who formed this group here in Wyoming County.

(gentle music) - My granddaughter, her name is Lily, she is 11 years old.

She turned 11 in March.

We've had her since she was nine months old.

My son and his wife are both addicts.

They're both in recovery, and Lily was put in foster care and then quickly brought to us.

My husband and I said, you know, "We don't want her in foster care.

We want her with us."

People that have substance abuse disorder, they're not bad people.

They have a disease.

(gentle music) Sandy Vieczorek, Catherine Garbus, and myself started a group called Wyoming County CARES.

That stands for Coalition on Addiction, Research, Educate, and Support.

We were very active in getting treatment court in Wyoming County.

That's how I got involved with Grandparents raising Grandchildren because there's so many of us that are raising our grandchildren.

And it's tough!

It really is tough.

- It takes a village, like everybody knows, to raise children.

We don't have the village.

(laughs) - You don't know what your future is, but I try to be very proactive with my health.

And, you know, kidding around with my doctor, I said, "My goal is to get her into college."

If I could do that, then, to me, that's being successful.

But there's the financial burden too.

(gentle music) - If you're 55 or older, you go to area of the aging.

Most parents are getting an average of $400 a month, and that is you buy their needs, you buy their clothes, you buy their shoes.

You turn those receipts in at the end of the month, and they will reimburse you.

That is a big help, but we really need, in Wyoming County, a lot more funds going towards the legal aspect of it.

You're trying to adopt her.

You're trying to fight for custody.

Keep 'em in the home that they deserve, where they're getting the best: the care, they're getting their education.

(gentle music) - Why deny a child the opportunity to be on a softball team or a baseball team?

I mean, it costs money to be on these things.

- I mean, at one point literally my basement was filled with all kinds of clothes and, you name it, just anything they could possibly need.

There are some things available out there for them.

They just need to reach out.

- And you wanna break that path of going down the wrong direction and get them involved in like baseball or archery or whatever they want to be in, you know, to give them these opportunities.

I didn't think we would, at our age, believe me, but, you know, it is what it is.

(gentle music) - The second time we have heard, "it takes a village," on this panel in this hour.

That seems to be a theme here where kids have a team, they have to have a team.

I'm wondering about the stigma, and, you know, there's a stigma there.

You know, my children can't do this, and I have to.

Why do you think there is still a stigma after all this time?

We've been talking about opioids now for years.

Why does that still exist?

- I think 'cause not, (laughs) I don't that everybody understands that it isn't a moral defect or somebody's character or a weakness.

It is a disease.

We have a hard time, I think, seeing it as that, and I think that's where that stigma still comes from even though we have been talking about about this, we have been talking about stigma.

I don't know anyone who isn't touched by this somewhere, and, you know, Barb said it in that: "good people with bad diseases."

These aren't bad people, but we have a real, I think maybe because we all do maybe know and love somebody, it's easier to say like, they're just bad, and, you know that can maybe, or maybe it's because we don't have that.

Maybe it's not my son, and it's not gonna be him 'cause he's not a bad person.

- So, it's protective.

- Maybe that's... It could be.

I don't know.

I will say it drives me crazy.

So I don't know what it is, but it really, it does bother me.

- Yeah, and I think it's, you know, as parents, we all want our children to achieve.

We want them to do great things in this world.

And I think if things happen along the way, and they're going to happen, and if you have a child who is an addict, I think a lot of people are afraid of the admission part of that is saying, you know, internally feeling like they failed.

But as Cammie said, it is a disease.

It's not just a choice for these people.

It's a disease that is not easily treatable.

- So hear that if nothing else.

I hope that can be a message that resonates.

I also heard there, Stephanie, I've heard you talk about kids needing to find a thing, and that grandma was talking about her granddaughter, "You know what, I just wanted to find a thing, "have a hobby or find a skill."

How important is, you know, I say, in quotes, "the thing" for a kid.

- 'Cause that's when I say, "the thing," - "The thing."

- 'cause I don't want to say a sport or it has to be something, you know, specific.

Like if it's that they volunteer somewhere or they're connected with an art club or, you know, they have a movie club or something, you know, that they're into.

They have to find their thing, and that helps to build the resiliency and for them to have connection with, you know, good mentors or, you know, good people in the community.

So, and that's exactly what Barb was saying is like she wants her to have those opportunities because she recognizes how important that is for her.

- To thread that needle, if a kid finds his or her thing, what are they more likely to do?

- Just be more connected to people and to find that mentor hopefully, you know, like someone who has a like interest who is not maybe a relative who sees them, you know, and they can build that trusting relationship like we had kind of talked about before, how important that is to have that person and to feel, you know, like autonomy and be able to feel confident that they are capable and good at something and that it's valid and people recognize that.

- Does a cell phone friend count here because I know lots of kids are buried in their phones these days.

- Yeah, that's a whole other conversation.

about cell phones.

- Yeah, I'm sure it is.

You know, and I think there's good and bad things with that for sure, you know, but I think being connected with people in person is really what would be encouraged, to be able to really get to know somebody and to flesh out their talents.

- [Julie] Do you find that a lot of issues start online?

- [Cammie] Absolutely.

- [Julie] Most of them start online?

- [Stephanie] Of course.

- [Cammie] Yes.

A lot of stuff.

- [Stephanie] Probably yes.

- [Cammie] Yeah, you can probably attest to that.

- Yeah, think at the youngest, the youngest ages of my students, those are where your first issues are starting, and certainly they're not starting as opioid - Right.

- addiction, - but they're starting with negative behaviors, peer interactions, social websites, access to more things than certainly all of us have had when we were growing up, and that's the scary thing, and I do think it makes a lot of these issues easier for them.

- I also think it makes things more difficult for that village because that village is a lot bigger.

So, you know, cell phones have made the world a lot smaller for our kids, so, as a parent, I always knew all my son's friends, and, you know, you even mentioned it, we could call them.

We could say you're gonna be home.

Now, our kids know kids from a lot of different schools.

- [Amie] 30 miles away.

- Exactly, so there's no way we know their parents, you know, who's home after school, where they're going.

So, yes, I think that is a big issue when it comes, especially, to those high risk behaviors.

- I think that got confusing during COVID too because now people were saying, "Oh, it's great that you're connected with your friends," but that's how they were taught to connect with friends.

- [Cammie] Yes.

- Go ahead, Amie.

- Well, I think when you have grandparents raising children, you're also having a larger age gap, and maybe there are people that aren't as comfortable with the technology so they don't know how to police it or, you know, how to teach children proper usage, good habits, you know.

So that can be difficult for grandparents as well.

- I'll switch a little bit here.

I know you are a foster care liaison for your school.

Tell me a little bit about that work and what that entails.

- So we do connect with our counties, both counties at Lackawanna Trail, to make sure that students have stability when they are in the foster care system.

So whether that be students who are in a foster home in our district that weren't originally in our district, or if it's already students that were attending.

So I connect with the liaisons from the foster care agency, and we try to make sure that the students aren't switching schools frequently, if it's close enough in proximity, and that kids have what they need as far as, you know, therapeutic components, additional tutoring if they've had gaps in their learning.

A lot of times kids will just miss, you know, there'll be a pause in their education, things like that.

So it's really a focus on educational stability.

- Do parents, are they surprised to find out that you have that direct line to other people?

- I think probably, you know, a lot of people don't, well we really work to educate our teachers because a lot of times they don't realize everything that a child's going through when they're in foster care.

So I don't think people understand what that is like for a child.

You know, a teacher will see a child that's coming in, dressed, clean, ready to go, but they're really not ready to go.

They've been through a lot by the time they've gotten to that seat.

- I do have to ask.

We certainly don't want to say that opioids are always terrible or always bad.

I know that they have changed millions of people's lives and are necessary in many medical ways.

How do you talk about that with students, that not everything is bad or good completely, but there is obviously a line.

We don't wanna vilify a drug when it's the usage and the abuse that's the issue.

- So when I talk to students about any kind of drugs, anything we put in our body, even stuff that can save our life is gonna have some negative effects, may have side effects.

We hear about them, right?

We watch the commercials for them.

There's all these side effects, but they're necessary.

So we talk about that risk and benefit from the drug.

So that's one of the things that I talk to kids about a lot when it comes to using someone else's drugs or drugs that you got online or from a pharmacy online, is that there was no doctor that was looking at your medical history and looking at the risk and the benefit.

So that's kind of where I look at that is that, "Yeah, there's a lot of drugs out there "that can be really help us, "but even they're gonna have side effects."

So we need to know that when we're using drugs that aren't there to help us, they're only gonna hurt us.

- That medication education piece - Yes, absolutely.

- that starts so early.

- [Cammie] Yes.

- Where are students getting the drugs?

That might be a silly question, but I feel like there's a lot of different answers here.

Where are they getting them?

- I think if it is occurring in your elementary levels, then that drug is coming from home.

That's coming from the medicine cabinet.

That's coming from a family member if they're taking it from someone.

And I think that's something that we have to do as educators is, you know, not just educate our children but also educate our community members and our parents as to, you know, the importance of locking up your medication.

Check for signs in a child.

If you start to see your child change, you really need to look into that and always have an open communication with our school districts.

- I think we have one final piece, and this was when Governor Shapiro was here in Wyoming County at a town hall that happened in January.

Had some interesting remarks about Wyoming County, and we'll listen to them now.

(gentle music) - It's my privilege, and it really is, to introduce my friend and our governor, Josh Shapiro.

- We are sort of unlikely, you know, buddies in this political environment that we all find ourselves in where things can always seem, you know, just too darn divisive, and we have shown an ability over many, many, many years to work together, and I think that's what the good people of Pennsylvania deserve, and that's what we've tried to model, and so I appreciate your leadership very, very much.

- I have never seen a problem so insidious as the opioid problem.

- What can we learn from Wyoming County that we can take with us to other counties maybe where it's not working as well.

What's the secret sauce?

- In a county like, you know, Wyoming County, I'm very proud of that Tunkhannock Area School District is like the hub.

We have a very large footprint that our district is 297 square miles, but where does everyone come?

Everyone comes to the school.

Every event is held at the school.

So, in a lot of ways, we become the frontline in identifying who's really in need.

- And I think that's kind of, when I talk about Tunkhannock, what makes Tunkhannock special is we're at everything.

Teachers and myself, we're at football games, we're at plays, you know, we're at everything.

- Young people need to see you around the clock, not one and done.

- And our faculty is real good at getting to know our students.

It becomes real obvious who needs help.

And we work very closely with our agency partners trying to get, you know, help to as many people as we possibly can.

- As you all know, you can't all do it by yourself, right?

It's everybody working together.

- We actually took our PCCD money, and we hired a trauma counselor which we could never have before because what we've realized is, in addition to our school counselors and our social workers, that when a student goes into crisis, when they come back, you can't expect everything to just be right, it'll be normal.

So now we have a full-time, in-house, licensed, you know, trauma counselor.

- I think funding needs to be so that all school districts could have a drug and alcohol person sitting in that school.

- Yeah, you really need to come out of your shell.

(attendees laughing) - I've been working on it.

(attendees laughing) - I just want to thank you for the inspiring work you're doing.

There are 67 counties.

We chose to be here in Wyoming County today because A, we know we've got a lot more work to do, but B, there's a lot we can learn and be inspired from in the way in which you all are doing your work.

So thank you all for having us.

We appreciate it.

(attendees applauding) (gentle music) - And I presume you are said trauma counselor.

- [Stephanie] One of me.

(panel members laughing) - Are you unusual?

Do a lot of school districts not have trauma counselors?

- I don't think they have them, you know, full time to be able to service K-12 students who need things and, you know, if something was to arise right now, I would be able to, you know, respond tomorrow morning as opposed to, you know, having to get in contact with an agency, and do they have openings?

It's a much more fluid process to be able to do a, you know, soft handoff from whatever is happening or what other mental health professional is already connected with the student or the family and then get them services right away and then maybe find something else that maybe is, you know, a titration down from the service that I have.

So, yes, it's very innovative and we've worked to kind of refine the role over the last two years, so.

- It might be interesting to come back in a couple of years and see if there is a difference to see if that work, you know, it shows up in statistics.

That might be something interesting to do.

You wanted to circle back just a bit on the where kids are possibly getting their drugs question.

- Yeah.

We touched on the young kids, but I think older students are getting them online.

- Is that easy?

- It is that easy for them.

Probably won't be that easy for me, but it's that easy for them.

They order them online, and they have them shipped to sometime a different address, a friend's house who's maybe parents aren't as on top of checking the mail, or maybe they work and they get home first, or they, a lot of places you can actually have a little like, "Please deliver to the garage, like back door," or something.

- Just leave it, don't (indistinct) on the door.

- Right, right.

That kind of stuff.

So a lot of our kids are getting, especially a lot of the pressed pills that are out on the streets today, from those online pharmacies that look very reputable if you go on and are not anything like that because it's all fake.

- That's frightening 'cause you have no idea - It's extremely frightening - what you're dealing with.

- Yes.

- I think the last question I might have here is a little more broad.

Obviously we're focused on schools today, and with good reason, but I'd like to know what you would like the community to know.

It is not just a school issue.

What are the so-called action items here that anybody watching this show might be able to say, "Okay, this is partly my job too, "even if I don't have a child in school."

What do you want people to know?

- I think I would like the community to know that everybody does play a part.

So, first of all, filling rooms like this to have people understand what's happening out there because it is ever-changing.

You know, we are talking about opioids, but we're seeing other drugs.

I mean we're looking.

THC is everywhere now.

So understanding what's happening out there but also knowing what role you can play as coaches, as business leaders, as church leaders.

I think that would be the big message is that I think, and we said it many times, but we look at adverse childhood experiences, those ACEs scores, the biggest mitigating factor is two non-parental adults.

So anybody in the community.

Like I said, coach, they can be that person.

- Yeah, but what would you like to see?

- Well, you know, I think, and it was said in the video, our schools, especially in a small county like Wyoming County, we are the hub of the community.

That school is where all our events take place: athletic events, musicals.

It's a community place, and it's not just an issue at the house down the road from you.

It's a community issue, and we need to look at it that way, and we need to look at it as, "We need to be there to support the community.

"The community needs to be there to support us."

And that starts with great conversation back and forth amongst residents and community members.

- How would you answer that question?

- I would pick it up right there with the community members having a close-knit small, you know, not area small, but, you know, in terms of the community members, small, knowing each other.

Everyone plays a role in being able to, you know, recognize if there's an issue and being able to, you know, try to connect that person with somebody, you know, whether it's through like the, you know, we talked about SAT program or, you know, being able to, you know, tell somebody at the school like they're noticing a child who maybe lives down the road from them that, like, is acting differently and saying, "Hey, like, this child is just, "you know, there's something going on.

"Can somebody take a closer look at it."

And just, if you see something or notice something, say something.

- And last to you, Amie.

- Well, I would like community members to know that the school is a resource for them even if they don't have children in school.

So, I think, if they don't know who to call, we can figure that out.

So they can call the school.

We have had random community members call us and say just that.

"This kid down the street," and I have to figure out who they are.

- Yep.

- Wow.

- So, I mean, we're okay with that.

We will try to figure out who to call, and we want to be a resource for the whole community.

- Well, I cannot thank you enough Cammie, Brian, Stephanie, and Amie for your time, your expertise.

You've been wonderful.

And as always, I feel like we could go on another hour, but that's all the time we have here for "Wyoming County Voices: Prevention Starts In Our Schools."

Thank you for watching.

We certainly hope you found it informative, and perhaps we'll have good conversations about opioid abuse in your own school communities.

I'm Julie Sidoni, and for all of us here at WVIA, we'll see you next time.

(bright upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Presenter] This program was made possible through support from the Wyoming County Opioid Settlement Committee.