Episode one: Alcohol and other drugs with SDECC
Episode one of EPIC Conversations addresses the topic of alcohol and other drugs. We invited Vivienne Li, drug and alcohol counsellor and group coordinator from the Sydney Drug Education Counselling Centre (otherwise known as SDECC) to speak on this topic.
Most parents and carers are aware that drug use is an issue that affects teenagers in our communities, however, when they learn that their own teen is experimenting with drugs, they are often shocked and don’t know what to do.
Vivienne has many years of experience working with teens and parents affected by drug and alcohol use. The EPIC Conversation with Vivienne will discuss parental concerns relating to drug and alcohol use in young people and how parents and carers can prepare to best support their teen as well as empower themselves.
Madeleine’s top take outs from this conversation:
Check in with how you as a parent/carer feel about drug and alcohol use.
If a young person wants to engage with SDECC, they don't need a referral letter by anyone, it’s free and they will see them within seven days.
Get some support for yourself, so you can hold the hope for your young person, there might be time your young person may not have that hope for themselves, but you can hold that hope for them.
Roberta’s top take outs from this conversation:
Don’t jump to conclusions about what your teen might be doing, experimenting doesn’t mean it will lead to heavy drug or alcohol use.
Before lecturing your teen about drug use, be curious and try to find out what they’re perspective is.
SDECC’s Paving Ways groups helps normalise and validate parents isolated by the stigma of a teenager using drugs/alcohol.
Q1. Vivienne, one of your roles with SDECC is a drug and alcohol counsellor? Can you explain your role and who you support, please?
V: I support young people between the age of 12 to 25, with a substance use disorder. And we also support young people who have that comorbidity which means they might have underlying mental health issues. So therefore, we're supporting them in a way by providing therapeutic therapy around one on one counselling.
We also support parents. One of my other roles is actually to coordinate groups for parents so that they feel well supported, so they can respond better to the young person's drug and alcohol use.
Q2. What are some of the signs that parents and carers should be aware of that their teen might be experimenting or using drugs?
V: This is actually quite a tricky question. I wish I could just give you a simple list of the things, however, one of the things when it comes to drug and alcohol, we often see parents get quite nervous. There is still quite a big stigma around drug and alcohol use in the community. My suggestion, SDECC’s position on this, is don't jump to conclusions. Slow down a little bit. When it comes to young peoples drug and alcohol use, it varies from one degree to another, given that the time is around adolescent development, for the young people. They often might be quite curious and want to try things. That doesn't necessarily mean it will to lead into a heavy use. So one of the things is just knowing yourself a little bit and not jumping to conclusions, because it might look very different for the young person.
Q3. Can you suggest ways that parents and carers can approach their teen about drug and alcohol use?
V: One of the best ways to do before you approach the young person, is to have a look at what your position is on drug and alcohol use?
For example, one parent might feel totally okay around alcohol use. But statistics actually show alcohol use is one of the highest percentage of substance use in Australia, and Australians have quite a relaxed approach to alcohol use. If you have a look at the accidents and problematic behaviours that stem from alcohol use, it is quite high. Consistently, research shows, alcohol is one of the highest.
Alternatively, you might also have a different belief around cannabis use. You might feel no, that's a no go zone. So therefore it’s good to first orientate yourself around this. How do you feel about drug use? Do you have certain bias around which type of substance you feel okay with and not okay with? If you're coming from a place where you are co parenting, it's not strange, it's not surprising, to see parents might also have different ideas around what is okay and what's not. One parent might feel it's totally okay to experiment with cannabis use, but the other parent might never have had any exposure to any drug use and feel it's not alright.
So before you approach a young person, our stance is, let's just step back a little bit. First, know yourself a little bit around how you feel about substance use.
Q4. If a parent or carer is concerned about their teen using drugs, they can contact the Drug and Alcohol counsellor for information and strategies. Can you just suggest ways parents can encourage their teens to seek counselling?
V: Yeah, it goes back to a little bit of knowing yourself first, as well, you probably will know what kind of relationship you have with your young person. Overall, we will say just be curious, before going to the advising and correcting, which is what we as parents feel like that's our job to do, to correct and make sure we keep our young people on the correct and the right path.
This may be very different to what your young person is feeling about substance use. And you may not know everything that’s going on for the young person. So go slow. Get a bit of information around substance use and how you feel about drug use as well.
Be curious, ask some questions. How does your young person feel about substance use? What's their perspective? Before we launch into any lecturing, advising, often your young person is perhaps just not in that place to receive that, and they might just shut down and not share any information. So it's going slow. Again, it's going back to what would trigger you and understand about your position around a substance use.
Q5. Parents can find it isolating when their child's engaging in risky behaviour, and you touched on the stigma before. When they're experimenting with drugs and alcohol, it's just not something that you're willing to discuss on the sideline at sport or other other places where you meet with parents, with your teens. Can you suggest ways to support parents that are feeling isolated and anxious?
V: That's a big one that we see often around parents when it comes to drug and alcohol use from a young person. Parents feel quite isolated. The common things we hear parents say is like, how often can I bring this up with my friends, because they're not going through the same thing. I feel I'm dragging the whole atmosphere or other people's day down by discussing the same thing over and over. And other times you might have very well meaning friends that may approach you in a way of just saying “just go tough”, “Why can't you just go tough?”, “You need to have a control over this”. These are all very well meaning advice and suggestions, but often leave our parents feeling very isolated, because they just go “I have tried all of that, if only that would work.” Right?
Our way of supporting parents is our Paving Ways groups. We have a close group, no more than eight parents in the group, with two clinicians. We go through these things with the parents. And what we found in a group setting a lot of our parents coming out at the end of the day, say I just feel very normalised and validated. A lot of things that I was going through my own life, my own struggles. I also learned how to respond in a more supportive way to a young person's needs. So this is why we recognise the importance of supporting parents. And that is actually a way how we're supporting our young people. Because sometimes a young person might not be ready to engage in any interventions.
Having the parents know what to do, and looking after themselves remain connected to the young person, it's actually a lot of support for the young person. So that's why if you're not 100% sure, firstly, is to go ‘Do I need a bit of support for myself?’ and you can give us a call, and we can walk through this with you.
EPIC: SDECC is an absolutely fabulous organisation. I'm aware that Paving Ways gives so much information and also gives you connection with other parents that are experiencing a similar thing. There's a very safe group of eight people that can then, and regularly do, stay in contact afterwards. They're going through similar emotions and trials and tribulations.
Q6. Vivienne you've had years of experience working with young people in their families is there something that you can share that will give perspective to parents and carers regarding drug use and their teens.
V: Yes. Going back to that part of we fear for the worst for our young people, when it comes to drugs, what will happen? Will it impact my young person’s study and a future career trajectory? We often go to that place of fearing the worst for our young people, because that has been parents role for many years of looking after our young people. At the same time, coming from a space of being supporting parents. Sometimes what we find is parents going through a cycle of frustration, and losing hope in the process, because it takes time for the young person to go through that themselves as well.
This is the part when we say look after yourself, while your young person may be going through the change themselves, it might take a little bit of time. If you look after yourself, so you can respond better. And also getting a bit of a support for yourself, you can hold out hope for your young person, there might be time when your young person may not have that hope for themselves, but you can hold out hope for them. And we can support you as a community to hold our hope for you. When you might feel a bit burnt out and frustrated.
Q7. SDECC offers heaps of resources both for parents and for teens. Do you mind giving a little bit of a rundown just so that people know exactly what they can reach out to you for?
V: Definitely. On our website we have a quick course which you can sign up and do. It will give you knowledge and background around the substance use and young people's stages of where they're at around substance use.
We also have on our website a page of reputable resources (websites) where you can get good quality substance use information. A lot of time people just Google, Google, Google for information, but getting reputable information so you don't feel after reading that your fears have been heightened even more.
We will be having a Parents Prepared programme (check SDECC website for upcoming sessions). Parents Prepared is a quick webinar, one and a half hours giving information around young people’s substance use and how you can respond to young people's use or mental health part of things. So if you're not 100%, sure about our Paving Ways groups, or if you feel like I can't commit myself at this point to do the six weeks programme, Parents Prepared might be a good way of just testing out to see if you like what we're offering. And if after the webinar you feel, okay, this has been helpful, and I want to find out more.
You don't need a referral, just pick up the phone and give us a call. And all of our services are free. So we're happy to support you over the phone, or we'll make a appointment, you can come in and speak to one of us.
Q8. SDECC also supports the teenagers as well don't you? What do you offer to teenage support?
V: If a young person wants to come and see us, they don't need any referral letter by anyone. However, if you want to refer, even for other health care professionals, they can just give us a call and we can send them a referral form. But you're welcome to pick up the phone, same process, a young person can actually pick up the phone and give us a call. We acknowledge that this is a young person's process. And that shift the responsibility and power to the young person. At the same time, they don't need a Medicare card. They don't need any payment or anything because we are just a completely free service. And the beauty of our services, we actually not kept in traditionally 10 sessions, as long as the young person meets our criteria, and they wanted to come and see us they can come and see us until they turn 25.
Q9. What sort of support do they get when they pick up the phone and ring you?
V: The process normally goes like this, when they pick up the phone and say they want to come and see us, we will set up that assessment with a young person so that they can see if we are the right service for them. And once that is being arranged and the young person feels we are the right service for them, we will put the young person in within a week. So the process is never longer than seven days. We want to make sure the young person can get into the service as soon as they are ready. Because we know how fast our young people can change their mind. So we want to make sure we are meeting that need promptly. So therefore from there on, it will be very much up to the young person they can engage with us once a week, twice a week. It's up to them where they're at. And we work from harm minimisation and a client centred approach, which is very much focused on what the young person wants to achieve in the time they are with us.
Q10. So you've got counsellors? They can see counsellors in there. Is that's what's provided.
V: Counselling and the service is where we maintain that high level of confidentiality and privacy for the young person which is paramount for our young people when it comes to drug and alcohol use and similarly that will be the same for our parents as well so that they feel their privacy is being protected in the community.
EPIC: It's absolutely amazing to have a service like this that is free. That's not needing referrals. That is just an ongoing support. We just absolutely encourage people to reach out. It's a brilliant, brilliant organisation.
V: We want to remove the barriers for people to access service, especially when it comes to the mental health and comorbidity. With drug and alcohol use, we want to make the process as streamlined asnd easy as possible for our young people and families.
Q11: Is there anything that I've missed? Is there anything that you'd like to add?
V: Our message is the same for our parents; look after yourself, so you can support your young people. So if you're not sure, feel free to give us a call and see how we can support you around this.
EPIC: Vivvian. Thank you very much. We see and admire the passion that you have for supporting young people and their families, thank you from EPIC.
Contact SDECC via their website - https://sdecc.org.au/
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“Get a bit of a support for yourself, you can hold out hope for your young person, there might be time your young person may not have that hope for themselves, but you can hold out hope for for them. And we can support you as a community to hold our hope for you. ”
