ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260029
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
LOOK PAST highfalutin fuzzwords more likely to be used by human-resources consultants than high-school students, and you can see real value in an initiative intended to help New River Valley teens deal with problems, small and large, in their personal lives.
Forget conflict management, conflict resolution, peer counseling and intervention. Call it friendly advice.
It may come as a surprise to some adults, but not all teen-agers have a clique of good friends or even one best friend, and even those who do may not feel comfortable talking to close buddies about certain things that trouble them. It could be a lack of confidence in dealing with members of the opposite sex, or feelings of inferiority, or a weight problem, or a trivial dispute with a classmate. It could also be physical or sexual abuse by someone in their own families, a secret drug or alcohol addiction, concerns about homosexuality, suicidal tendencies.
The program, called the Teen Leadership Institute, was organized by the New River Valley Community Services Board. It basically asks middle-school and high-school students to help others resolve such issues. To their credit, about 100 New River Valley youngsters have given up part of their summer vacation to sit in classrooms to learn how.
Often, in a crisis or life-threatening situation, the ``how'' obviously involves leading a classmate to an adult - a teacher, perhaps, whose trustworthiness the student can vouch for. Probably more often, it's simply a matter of encouraging classmates to talk about what's bothering them, of being a good listener, keeping confidences, sharing experiences and discussing options that help distressed students work out their problems.
Sound hokie? Only until you recall cases where kids have taken their own lives or run away from home or gone off the deep end into drugs or dark trauma from which they may never recover - and stunned parents, neighbors and friends said, ``We had no idea anything was wrong.''
It isn't hokie for teens to reach out to peers and be part of their support system by showing they understand and care. Hey - that's what friends are for.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB