The Council Joins Forces with Teen and Family Services to Support Teens and Parents in the Face of Rising Overdose Deaths

The Council on Recovery is excited to welcome Teen and Family Services whose central office will now be housed at The Council’s campus on Jackson Hill Street in a strategic move that will multiply impact and conserve resources. The two recovery-focused nonprofits will maintain their distinct identities while sharing space and coordinating services for families with young people impacted by substance use.

The move comes amidst an alarming spike in drug overdoses, which is now the leading cause of unintentional death in the United States. Declining mental health is also a significant concern, with Texas Children’s Hospital reporting that the number of emergency room visits related to mental health crises has skyrocketed 800% since before the pandemic.

“Teens today face more challenges and pressures than ever before,” said George Youngblood, President & CEO of Teen and Family Services. “Together, Teen and Family Services and The Council on Recovery can support the entire family as they navigate a complicated world.”

Long-time allies, the two nonprofits hope that by strengthening their collaboration, they can improve the landscape of care in Houston. “Addiction is too big a problem to solve alone. This partnership helps make the road to recovery easier,” said Mary Beck, President & CEO of The Council. “With so many families in need, it is essential that we join together with like-minded organizations to extend our own impact and make the best use of limited resources.”

With nearly a century of combined experience, The Council on Recovery and Teen and Family Services will work together to leverage their unique strengths to more fully serve families with teens affected by addiction and co-occurring mental health conditions. Services will include screening and assessment; education and parent coaching; individual, family, and group counseling; and recovery support services.

For more information on these services, or to make a referral, contact us through our website or call 713.914.0556.

The Council Responds to the State of Emergency on Child and Adolescent Mental Health

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association declared a state of emergency in child and adolescent mental health, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the inequities that result from structural racism. The Council on Recovery remains steadfast in our goal to help any and every child and adolescent affected by substance use and other mental health disorders in the midst of these national crises.

Child and adolescent mental health had worsened in the decade before the pandemic, with suicide becoming the second leading cause of death among this population by 2018. This only intensified with the challenges children and adolescents faced in the last year and a half. Students lost consistent access to friends and adults supports. Many took on new responsibilities, including childcare, housework and part time jobs, putting added pressure on developing minds. Tragically, more than 140,000 children in the U.S. lost a primary or secondary caregiver to COVID-19, with youth of color disproportionately impacted.

child and adolescent mental health

With substance use disorders and overdoses continually skyrocketing across all demographics, we commend and support the proposals included in this state of emergency declaration, including but not limited to:

  • Increase federal funding dedicated to ensuring all families and children can access evidence-based mental health screening, diagnosis, and treatment to appropriately address their mental health needs, with particular emphasis on meeting the needs of under-resourced populations.
  • Improve access to technology to assure continued availability of telehealth to provide mental health care to all populations.
  • Increase implementation and sustainable funding of effective models of school-based mental health care.
  • Fully fund comprehensive, community-based systems of care that connect families in need of behavioral health services and supports for their child with evidence-based interventions in their home, community or school.
  • Promote and pay for trauma-informed care services that support relational health and family resilience.

“One thing we know is that children and adolescents are 100% our future,” says Alejandra Ortiz, LMSW, adolescent therapist at the Center for Recovering Families, “And it is our responsibility that they feel empowered and safe enough, physically and mentally, to take on the curve balls life can throw at them.”

The Council’s Center for Recovering Families offers assessment, counseling, education and support for children and adolescents. This can include parent consultations and coaching as well. To learn more about our Children & Adolescent Services, call 713.914.0556, or contact us through our website today.

How COVID-19 Is Affecting Teens’ Mental Health

This post is contributed by CHOICES counselor Joanna Robertson, M.MFT, LMFT, LPC

Like most of us, adolescents had their world turned upside down back in March by the Coronavirus pandemic. As teens prepare to return to school, I want to share a few of the ways COVID-19 has affected teens’ mental health, how this impacts them long-term, and how you can help.

The adolescent brain is still growing and developing. The prefrontal cortex, the section of the brain responsible for critical thinking and impulse control, is not fully developed until about 25 years old. Thus, adolescents may need additional support when it comes to regulation, which includes sleeping patterns, use of time and technology usage. Because of the pandemic, students lost the structure of school time, and when coupled with a lack of parental support, this left students to navigate on their own. This led to odd sleeping patterns and overall dysregulation, which can impact coursework, family relationships, and mental health.

Teens mental health

What are the challenges teens face in the pandemic?

Students lost consistent access to friends and adult supports. One study found that 80% of adolescent girls feel “more lonely and isolated than before” (The Rox Institute). While teachers, counselors, and mentors are doing their best to remain connected, it proves a challenging situation. Many teens are experiencing an increase in their sense of isolation, depression, and loneliness.

In addition to navigating schoolwork at home, many students have taken on new responsibilities, including childcare, housework, and part-time jobs. This puts additional pressure on teens to use their time and energy in a balanced way, which is already a challenge for the adolescent brain. It also makes it challenging for these students to keep up with schoolwork and can cause many to fall even further behind.

These are only a few of the factors impacting teens as a result of COVID-19. If teens were already using alcohol and/or drugs, they likely continue to do so throughout the pandemic. As their stress increases and their access to healthy coping support decreases, they are more at risk for developing substance use disorders. Further, previous crises show that teenagers may develop substance use problems after the crisis has passed. It is important that caring adults stay actively engaged in supporting the adolescents in their life.

How you can help teens.

Adolescents are creative, resilient, and resourceful, especially when they have supportive adults in their life. If you are wondering how you can help, start with the teens in your life. Talk to them about how they are experiencing things and ask what support they might need. Help them create structure. It’s something they may not want in the moment, but it’s something they need, and need help creating. Connect them with mental health resources either through their school or in the community. Finally, be aware of your own coping methods and responses. Set an example by finding healthy coping skills, such as meditation, peer support, counseling, and exercise.

If you need support, The Council is the place to start. Call us today at 713.914.0556 and ask about our virtual services.

The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Addiction

For decades, the professional approach to addiction has been shifting away from shaming and blaming, and toward the belief that addiction is a normal and common biological response to adversity experienced in childhood. The popularization of this game-changing perspective is credited to Dr. Daniel Sumrok, director of the Center for Addiction Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Medicine, who began his crusade to change the narrative around addiction after treating Vietnam veterans with PTSD in the early 1980s.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) affect long-term health, and can include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; living with a family member who’s addicted to substances; depression and other mental illnesses; parental divorce or separation; incarceration or deportation of a family member; racism; involvement in the foster care system, and more. Clinicians like Dr. Sumrok administer an ACE assessment upon meeting a patient for the first time, and for good reason.

childhood trauma and addiction

According to ACE studies, about 64% of people have at least one ACE, which can double to quadruple the likelihood of using drugs or alcohol, particularly at an early age. Having an ACE score of 4 nearly doubles the risk of heart disease and lung cancer and increases the likelihood of becoming an alcoholic by 700%. People with a score of 5 or higher are seven to 10 times more likely to use illegal drugs and become addicted. Furthermore, these studies show that it doesn’t matter what type of trauma the patient experienced. Different combinations of ACEs produce the same statistical health consequences.

Considering potential childhood trauma is necessary for addressing one’s addiction.

This requisite has fortunately also normalized the concept of addiction as “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking” – it’s something one adopts as a coping behavior because they weren’t provided with a healthy alternative when they were young. This approach is not only supported by psychological research, it’s also the compassionate route to treating clients with substance abuse problems. Rather than labeling someone as an addict and punishing them for their behavior, clinicians like those at The Council find it’s kinder and more productive to address ACEs with their clients, and to help them seek comfort in other behaviors. Since its inception, the staff at the Center for Recovering Families is dedicated to helping their clients by looking at their trauma when appropriate and providing the necessary skills to deal with their feelings.

For more information about ACEs, read here. To calculate your ACE score, click here.

For questions about The Council’s assessment and treatment options, or if you or a loved one needs help, call (713) 914-0556 or contact us here.

CDC Reports High Tobacco Use Among Youth in 2019

The Center for Disease Control released a report earlier this month on tobacco product use among middle and high school students in public and private schools across America, reminding The Council on Recovery that although we’ve made great strides in the past decade, we still have much work to do in the coming years in our fight to reduce substance use and abuse by minors.

The National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) is an annual, cross-sectional, self-administered survey of U.S. middle school and high school students attending public and private schools that uses a representative sample to estimate how many youths are using tobacco, and what factors contribute to this number, such as type of tobacco product, exposure to tobacco marketing, perceptions of harm, and more. Here are its major findings:

Over half of all U.S. high school students (53.3 %, around 8 million) have used a tobacco product.

Almost a third of high school students (31.2%) reported they were currently using tobacco products. E-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among high schoolers, with 27.5% reporting they had used one in the past 30 days.

A fourth of all U.S. middle school students (24.3%, around 2.9 million) reported using a tobacco product.

About 12.5% of middle school students reported they were currently using tobacco products. E-cigarettes were also the most commonly used tobacco product with middle schoolers, with 10.5% reported using them.

E-cigarettes remain a major public health concern.

The prevalence of cigarette smoking among students was the lowest ever recorded by the study since 1999. This is no cause to celebrate, however, as this is due to the emergence and popularization of e-cigarettes, which have been recorded as the most popular tobacco product among youths since 2014. In 2017-2018, the use of e-cigarettes increased by 77.8%, prompting the U.S. Surgeon General to declare e-cigarette use a national epidemic last December. This 2019 report reports even higher e-cigarette usage, but takes into consideration changes to the survey itself that could have affected outcomes.

This survey acts as a reminder to The Council that there is still much work to be done in middle schools and high schools across the major Houston area. Through the CHOICES program, The Council will continue to meet schools where they are at to help students and their families resist the seductive appeals of e-cigarette and other tobacco product marketing, and learn the risks and consequences of substance use at such an early age.

“Longitudinal studies have shown that youth vapers are four times more likely to smoke combustible cigarettes than non-vapers,” says Patrick Hagler, CHOICES counselor. “CHOICES can help by educating teens and parents about the real consequences of vaping.”

The Council on Recovery and Prevention Resource Center 6 have also teamed up to host a Houston Vaping Summit on February 21, 2020, with the goal to educate local school administrations (as well as healthcare, law enforcement, mental health professionals, and parents) on vaping and to equip them with the tools they need to respond promptly and effectively.

In positive news, the federal government has raised the legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21, effective in the summer of 2020.

For more information on the National Youth Tobacco Survey, click here.

If your teen or child needs our help, call (713) 914-4100. For information on how to create a CHOICES program at your school, please contact (281) 200-9272.

Why is The Council Addressing Vaping?

This post is a contribution by Mel Taylor, President and CEO of The Council on Recovery.

If you follow The Council’s work, you’ve probably seen us discuss vaping quite a bit lately. But aside from the alarming news headlines, you may be wondering, “Why does The Council care about vaping?” Vaping is legal in Texas, after all, for people over the age of 21. And advocates of e-cigarettes argue that in comparison to traditional cigarettes, vaping is the better option. But as alcohol has proven, when used to excess, many things can be harmful even if they are legal. Vaping is no different. The Council believes unequivocally that vaping is dangerous and deserves our community’s attention.

Unfortunately, a lack of reliable information on the matter combined with sensational nightly news stories can tempt us into dismissing this phenomenon as just another overhyped story. Here at The Council, our goal is not to scare you – rather, we want to empower you with information you can trust to make your own choice.

So, why does The Council care about vaping?

The nicotine and other chemicals in vape liquid produce a pleasure response that changes the brain and can lead to addiction.

Nicotine produces a dopamine response in the brain, which then primes the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding stimuli. Anytime a substance alters the way the brain functions, there is potential for abuse and addiction. This is particularly true for young people whose brains are not yet fully developed, and are highly susceptible to changes in the way their brains respond to pleasure. Research consistently demonstrates that adolescents who vape are 3 times more likely to subsequently smoke traditional cigarettes.

But vaping isn’t safe for adults, either.

Many adults have seen first-hand the destruction wreaked by a lifetime of smoking cigarettes, so vaping may seem safe in comparison. Indeed, the e-cigarette industry originally marketed their products as a quit-aid, which has helped to perpetuate this myth. Vaping does not burn tobacco – the source of carcinogenic tar in traditional cigarette smoke – however, it does expose the respiratory system to nicotine and a cocktail of other harmful chemicals, and there is mounting evidence that it causes similar long-term lung damage as traditional cigarettes. What’s more, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation device. So, what does it all mean?

The long-term impact of vaping remains to be fully seen, but we know enough to say vaping is an urgent problem and immediate action is needed. As this problem develops, our learning will continue to grow. Just last week the Centers for Disease Control announced a breakthrough finding, naming vitamin E acetate as the potential culprit behind recent vaping related lung injuries and deaths, and helping to advance our understanding of this challenge. For now, The Council is busy doing what we have done for the last 75 years: supporting our community. The Council has weathered many such epidemics in our lifetime – from crack cocaine, to methamphetamine, to opioids, and now vaping. As ever, we remain committed to serving families who are impacted by addiction with information they can trust and best-in-class treatment.

Click here for more information on how The Council is tackling the vaping epidemic, and save the date for our Vaping Summit on February 21, 2020.