Youth Alive!, Part II

Per a request from Kathy in the post below, here are some statistics from the spring 2008 California Healthy Kids Survey, part of the information Emma Worldpeace used when she wrote her UC Berkeley thesis. Below that is some information on her presentation to the SHUSD Board of Trustees on Thursday, and to the community at Youth Alive! on Friday. For more, I strongly suggest that you read my story in this week’s Indie, and check out the KMUD archives.

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Ever gotten high from drugs

7th grade, SHUSD: 25%
7th grade, statewide: 7%

9th grade, SHUSD: 34%
9th grade, statewide: 20%

11th grade, SHUSD: 83%
11th grade, statewide: 36%

Binge drinking in the last 30 days

7th grade, SHUSD: 17%
7th grade, statewide: 5%

9th grade, SHUSD: 38%
9th grade, statewide: 12%

11th grade, SHUSD: 42%
11th grade, statewide: 21%

Marijuana, daily use (state numbers not available)

7th grade, SHUSD: 5%
9th grade, SHUSD: 20%
11th grade, SHUSD: 20%

Drink and drive, or passenger in vehicle where driver was drunk (state numbers not available)

9th grade, SHUSD: 41%
11th grade, SHUSD: 48%

Although the majority of young people are not using it, marijuana is the second most commonly used drug among local teens. Fifty-five percent of Southern Humboldt Unified School District eleventh graders report using marijuana in the last 30 days, compared to 19 percent statewide. Our youth exceed the statewide averages in all areas of high-risk behavior listed on the chart above.

Brain development: Because of their physical and neurological stage of development and vulnerability to peer influence, teens are more at risk than adults when using alcohol and marijuana. Young people need support and guidance, especially when faced with the need to control impulses and make smart choices. Parents and educators can help by opening lines of communication and setting clear boundaries.

Emotional health: When asked if they have, during the past 12 months, “felt so sad and hopeless almost every days for two weeks that they stopped doing some usual activities, 20 percent of 7th graders, 37 percent of ninth graders, and 19 percent of eleventh graders responded affirmatively. These feelings – especially when compounded with alcohol or other drug use, or left untreated – can lead to depression, violence and suicide.

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Worldpeace, a 2004 graduate of South Fork High School, wrote her senior thesis at UC Berkeley on deaths among youth in Southern Humboldt, using data from the Humboldt County Public Health Department. Additionally, she conducted extensive interviews with nine residents – five youths and four adults – and found that the same themes resonated through all of them.

“Throughout my time in high school and college, I kept losing friends and family way too young,” Worldpeace said, noting that some college friends “who had grown up in the Oakland ghetto” had never lost a single friend to a car accident, much less several. “I decided to do a statistical analysis, and I wanted to know: How has this issue impacted people living here?” For purposes of her thesis, “youth” was defined as anyone between the ages of 12 and 24 who had suffered a violent or untimely death – suicide, homicide, or traffic accident (long-term illnesses, for example, were not included).

Worldpeace distributed a flyer at both meetings, with a breakdown of the numbers available from Public Health. They paint a grim picture: from 1997 to 2007, there were 37 deaths in the 12-to-24 age group, 16 female and 20 male. Of those, 16 died in motor-vehicle accidents, nine committed suicide, six were murdered, and six died in miscellaneous accidents. “Compared to other Humboldt County census areas,” Worldpeace reported, “Southern Humboldt’s youth death rate per 100,000 population is significantly higher – 28.3 to 14.2 [countywide average].” The area with the next-highest numbers – Trinity-Klamath, which includes Hoopa and Weitchpec – had 23.4 youth deaths per 100,000, with Arcata coming in a distant third at 14.5.

The actual numbers are even higher, though: for purposes of the study, only those youths who died within the borders of the SHUSD were included. However, several have died outside of the area, including Reia Shapiro, who perished in a car accident in Southern California; Stevie Shroyer, in another car accident at Ruth Lake; and Jenny Barnett, who died a few weeks ago in Mount Shasta, the apparent victim of an overdose.

...Reckless driving was one of the emergent themes in the interviews she conducted, Worldpeace explained, adding that high alcohol consumption – “drinking just to get drunk, passing the bottle of Crown” – was of major concern to all the interviewees. Fear of seeking help, self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, and engaging in other high-risk behaviors after another young one’s death was also discussed: “You see people drinking at memorials, or you see them smoking way too much weed – or drinking at a friend’s memorial, then driving home drunk. It feeds back into itself.”

Lack of boundaries on the part of adults was a recurrent topic, as was the accompanying need for extended families and supportive adults “like Joani Rose and Barbara Penny [of Recycled Youth].” Perhaps the saddest emergent theme, Worldpeace said, was “acquiescence to death” – feeling numb and overwhelmed. “People had lost so many friends, students, et cetera,” she continued, “they could no longer process their grief... Some would go through 25 or 30 names in their minds and ask themselves, ‘Have I ever properly grieved any of them?’”

The answer for many was “no” – and, deeply disturbing for Worldpeace, “People feel it’s become part of the experience of living in this community. That, for me, was the ‘put on the brakes’ moment in these interviews, because these are all preventable deaths.”

Perhaps the strongest theme to emerge – one that the interviewees were afraid to broach, but couldn’t speak honestly omitting it – was the marijuana culture and what Worldpeace calls “the secrecy oxymoron.” “It’s a huge part of our economy and how we define ourselves, but no one’s allowed to talk about it, much less to teachers and other ‘official’ adults,” she said. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s never dealt with because they don’t want to compromise their family’s livelihood... There’s also a sense that a lot of young people in this area don’t know the value of a dollar. Many have no drive, especially if they can make $150,000 a year right after high school, or even if they’ve dropped out. It’s especially an issue for young men, who wind up isolating themselves from the community at large.”

...Worldpeace is currently employed with AmeriCorps through the Southern Humboldt Family Resource Center, located at 344 Humboldt Ave. in Redway (by Redway School). Community members interested in reading her thesis, or becoming involved with youth, are strongly encouraged to call the FRC at 923-1147.