An ounce of prevention is the strategy in Harwich and Chatham

It takes a town to raise a child

By Teresa Martin

It’s not easy being 14 –and that’s why two towns on the Cape are taking a proactive approach to the issues of adolescents and taking to heart the idea that it takes a town to raise a child.

In Harwich, kids ages 11-18, as well as parents of those ages can turn to the town-funded youth counselor for help in making it through those sometimes bumpy years.

A Decade of the Preventative Model

Licensed clinical social worker Sheila House is Harwich’s Youth Counselor. She says that In 1998/99 a group of people in the town – school, church, community organizations, and parents, formed a study committee to study need for working with Harwich teens at risk.

“They felt that doing a preventive model of some kind might be really helpful,” she said.

It was put before town meeting in 2000 and approved. A decade later, the program continues to serve the town. It is a year-round position and is housed outside of the school, which allows it to have a high level of confidentiality and access for both adolescents and families.

“I don’t just work school hours and I am here in the summer and during vacations so someone is always around. There’s always someone they can go it,” says House.

Different from a School Dynamic

“I don’t just work school hours and I am here in the summer and during vacations so someone is always around. There’s always someone they can go it,” says House.

House practices from a comfortable old building on Main Street, with comfortable offices that don’t scream “school guidance” or “you’re in trouble”, which make for a different dynamic for kids.  (House can be reached there at 508-430-7836.)

Teenagers have so much more going on in their lives, points out House. They have more information coming at them and it’s so hard to sort it out.

And at that age, they simply don’t see the big picture. Getting to that big picture is one the developmental milestones of adolescents, but sometimes in getting there they do things which range from foolish to downright dangerous. Counseling provides another trusted person that they can bounce things off of, and try to make sense of their world.

Small towns, same problems

Small towns, like those on the Cape, have the same issues of substance abuse, suicide, mental health, and plain old adolescent angst as large cities – but it often isn’t clear where to find help. That’s another important role House plays.

She is a bit like the connecting glue – she can do referrals and is a veritable who’s-who of youth services from nutrition to counselors to, well, just about anything that is needed. She also does outreach with the schools and is the town liaison to the volunteer Harwich Youth Services Committee, which is working to build youth programming at the community center.

Recently House and  Robin Titus, the Harwich High School psychologist, completed suicide prevention training; as part of the training they in turn have to train at least 25 people over the next year. Because they know the community, they can identify people who might have the most impact on kids and work directly with them, to maximize the investment in suicide prevention training.

Old Tyme Social Work

“It’s the original old time social work, in a way,” noted Carol Nickerson, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in Harwich.  “It is in the community, with the community.”

“I think it is great. I get referrals and I also refer people to those resources. I’ve recommended people get in touch with the Youth Counselor. It’s a connection to an adult who isn’t a teacher and an ‘authority’ –she’s more of a mentoring safe adult. But she is clinically trained so she can assess high risk kids and identify issues that might not show up in the school system.”

Nickerson points out that it is a bit like a Council on Aging counselor, in that the role addresses the intersection between a population and the community at large.

Similar models

A few other towns in Massachusetts, including Southampton and Weston, have town youth counselors as well.  And, right next door in Chatham, that town is taking a similar approach with a slightly different twist.

While it doesn’t have a youth counselor, Chatham has reshaped the role of youth outreach to be far broader than the typical parks and rec sports leagues and summer programs. Sharon Powell, a former special needs teacher, serves as the town’s Youth Coordinator, a position that was developed in 2005 in response to a number of youth suicides.

“Our focus is on making healthy choices,” she said, and on keeping kids busy, engaged, and being part of the community.

“It helps us be far more joined together as a town,” noted Powell, adding that it also helps keep lots of different eyes watching out for the kids.

Regional thinking

House and Powell, along with other clinicians and youth service providers in the region collaborate with one another. They share referral questions, training, and outreach. Together they form the basis of a safety net for helping Cape kids safely navigate through to adulthood.

Success lies in preventing and managing issues as early as possible, before there is a full-blown crisis, and building an environment where kids know someone is looking out for them.

The whole idea of prevention is still something that is catching on – both on and off the Cape. There are so many competing needs for scarce dollars, so it can be hard to quantify in hard cold cash the return that a position like Youth Counselor can make.

Returns

But a quick look at few national stats suggest that the cost of not taking preventive action is high. For example, the nonprofit Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center points to studies that calculate the cost of underage drinking in the US was $68.0 billion in 2007 --- or a cost of $2,280 per year for each adolescent. That’s just one segment of costs.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s most recent figures, the Cape and Islands region has a suicide rate for ages 10-24 that is 1.5 times higher than the rest of the Commonwealth's. Another way of looking those stats is that there is one homicide for every six suicides on the Cape and Islands.

A privilege to help

House has no doubt that her role, and other roles like hers, do make a difference. Whether it is one kid at a time or for all the kids in town at once, it’s a role with powerful payback for both the clinician and the community.

“For me, it’s a privilege that any one would tell me about their inner life,” said House. “And they are so honest, they are so clear, they don’t sugar coat it. They have got a lot going on.”

Teresa Martin is a well-known Cape Cod technology leader who has served as  C.E.O. of the Cape Cod Technology Council and currently is Vice Chairwoman of OpenCape which is dedicated to fixing the Cape's dropped cell calls and upload issues. Read Teresa's tech blog, Cape Eyes here.