Recovery in Massachusetts
One state has lost too many to death by overdose and they are doing something about it.
Massachusetts has a bright idea about how to help their drug addicted youth. They are creating a high school just for such kids and while they will have their hands full, if handled correctly, the concept could be a great success. Forming peer groups within the high school and making sobriety the responsibility of the staff and students could help create a concept that could be exported to the rest of the country. Here is an article about the subject.
“ROCKLAND—Photos of a smiling Liz LeFort splashed across a screen as her mother spoke of everything the young woman accomplished.
She was a cheerleader and youth coach. She ranked 10th in her senior class at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. She earned a scholarship. She loved and was loved.
“She had it all — beauty, talent, smarts,” her mother, Janis McGrory, told a room of more than 100 area legislators, educators and law enforcement officials Friday. “But she not only graduated from high school. She graduated from using OxyContin to shooting heroin.”
LeFort, 23, died Jan. 6 of a heroin overdose.
“If it can happen to her,” her mother said, “it can happen to anybody.”
And it is that message — drug addiction can happen to anybody — that Brockton school officials and members of the North River Collaborative wanted everyone to know at a conference Friday, where they unveiled plans for a recovery high school in southeastern Massachusetts.
The school would serve students recovering from drug abuse and dependence, and it would be modeled after three others in the state — one in Springfield, one in Boston and one in Beverly.
Recovery schools are based on the premise that young addicts are likely to relapse if they return to their old high school while in recovery. The new school would combine academics with a recovery culture that includes counseling for students and families, said Bill Carpenter, a Brockton School Committee member who serves on the collaborative’s task force.
Carpenter, whose son is a recovering heroin addict, also addressed the crowd. As did state Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Brighton, who provided an emotional speech calling for state representatives to act now to address a major need on the South Shore.”
Narconon has provided drug education for youth for decades and offers its help to any schools who need it.
Narconon has provided effective drug rehab with great results for many years, for those who didn’t pay attention or were never provided effective prevention measures.