ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090041
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
IT'S JULY 9, Roanoke - do you know where your kids are?
Har-rumph! goes the gray-beard and blue-tint set - sure they know. Those ill-mannered spoiled brats, those lazy young punks, are hanging around the shopping malls or cruising Williamson Road or getting their noses pierced. They're vegetating in front of the TV set, or they're playing their music loud enough to give your eardrums whiplash. If, that is, they're not doing drugs, having sex, carrying guns.
So stereotyped are today's teen-agers that it may come as a shock to some of their elders that not all Roanoke teens are occupied with going to hell in a handbasket. A growing number are working for the betterment of the community - actively and earnestly striving to keep other kids their age and younger from falling into the stereotype. They're participants in Roanoke's Teen Outreach Program - an effort based on the premise that the strongest influence in the lives of most young people is other young people.
Question that premise? Think of the times a parent or lawyer has pleaded the case of a child who's gotten into serious trouble with the law: He or she is really a good kid ``who just fell in with the wrong crowd.'' Think, too, about studies showing that a student's scholastic performance can be raised if he or she has close friends with high scholastic performance.
Call it peer pressure, call it role modeling - the influence of those in their own generation is a powerful force in young people's lives. TOP is an effort to harness it to help Roanoke's at-risk young people and, by many accounts, it's one of the most effective problem-prevention programs the city has going for it.
Patterned after nationwide outreach programs, and started here in 1990 as a Junior League project, TOP pairs teen-agers with an interest in helping with those who need their help. Sometimes the volunteers are motivated by having experienced at-risk situations in their own young lives. Their aim is to steer others around the pitfalls.
And the evidence is mounting: The one-on-one help they give - through friendship and attention - works. The program is helping reduce truancy, academic failure, the school dropout rate, substance abuse and teen pregnancy.
TOP, which had 20 student participants from Patrick Henry High School in 1990, now has nearly 60 participants from Patrick Henry, William Fleming High School and the Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy. The program, it was announced last week, is being folded into Family Service of Roanoke Valley, a nonprofit organization that provides professional services such as parent-child counseling and in-home services for the elderly.
This move is expected to double TOP's participation and broaden its reach.
That would be great. TOP's expansion is to be welcomed because many youngsters in Roanoke need a pal to show the way through the minefields that confront today's youth. But welcome it, too, as a reminder that many young people are proving themselves equal to the task of selflessly giving time and energy for the good of others.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB