HURT TO HOPE: Teens of addicted parents feel inclusion, reclaim voices through group

WAVERLY - A group of Waverly High School teens has spent a childhood feeling powerless over their lives.

While children often feel powerless by the sheer nature of their age, their size, these dozen 14- and 15-year-olds' childhoods have often been controlled by heroin, meth, or whatever other drugs satisfied their parents' addiction. The food stamps meant to help them grow were often sold or exchanged for drugs. The parents meant to care for them gone sometimes to jail or missing for days due to a drug binge.

"I was scared. I felt like I wasn't good enough for her. She went missing for a while which scared me really bad," said 14-year-old Ashtyn Rodgers whose mother's addiction really spiraled out of control over the past three years.

Rodgers spoke softly as she colored an intricate floral design with brilliant orange and red markers in an office at the Pike County YMCA. Coloring is one of many ways she and the others of the Hurt to Hope group are learning to cope, to calm their minds, thoughts, and emotions.

Hurt to Hope has been a path for Rodgers and other students to regain some control and support through solidarity. In a matter of months, they've grabbed the attention of state legislators and Gov. John Kasich who mentioned them during his final State of the State address this month.

Their voices have brought the promise of future state help to Pike County — among the most economically depressed counties in the state — and inspired the introduction of a bill meant to help students like them across southeastern Ohio map out their futures.

Maybe for the first time in some of their lives, the girls feel powerful.

"I hope no other kids have to deal with what we have to, that they have people to talk to," said Faith Butler, 15.

What about the children?

When Courtney Gillott took on the guidance counselor job at Waverly primary and junior high schools in 2015 after a decade teaching, she wasn't expecting the emotional onslaught. As a teacher, she never knew the full extent of her students' home lives but as a counselor, she's privy to it all — hunger, poverty, homelessness, child abuse, sexual abuse, self-harm, and absent parents where some are addicted while others are in prison or have died of a drug overdose.

Gillott estimates upwards of a third of Waverly City Schools students aren't living with their parents.

"The anxiety and depression is overwhelming sometimes ... We have kids who say they go home and sit in their room for five hours because they don't want to deal with anyone. A lot of these kids are dealing with adult situations as kids," Gillott said.

In the aftermath of a student's suicide last year, Waverly Police Captain Dennis Crabtree began taking more of an interest in the students at the high school.

"The more I investigated that case, the more I saw how these kids are being let down," Crabtree said, adding it angered him.

When talking with students, he heard what Gillott saw: They were being raised by grandparents due to their parents' addiction. They were angry, irritable, anxious, and sad. They couldn't sleep at night for all their worries. All of the pent-up emotions were erupting into negative behaviors.

He had known Rodgers and some of her peers because he'd been arresting their parents for years but hadn't really thought of what the impact was on them.

"I didn't realize 12 years had passed and now they're teenagers and nobody helped them. You look at anything that's geared toward this opioid stuff, nothing is geared to helping these kids ... They think they're not living with a drug addict anymore, everything's fine. That's not the case. They've seen and been through so much (stuff) that just because they aren't living with the drug addict anymore doesn't mean they don't have problems that need to be dealt with," Crabtree said. "Not one of them want to be like their parents but no one is teaching them how not to be like their parents."

At the beginning of the school year, Waverly had an assembly where a student from another school shared how she'd overcame bad experiences in her life. They talked about being nicer to each other and being there for one another, Gillott said.

Crabtree also spoke to the high school students to let them know, "I didn't care about their parents anymore. It was no longer about their parents. It was no longer about chasing their parents around trying to arrest them, trying to take them to jail."

"It was to let them know they were finally going to have somebody that was going to stand up for them because that's what none of them have ever had," said Crabtree. "They never had that adult who finally stood up and said, 'You know what, screw all you guys. This is what we're doing and it's no longer about their parents.'"

After the assembly, like he promised, Crabtree began regularly stopping at the school in an effort to build a trusting relationship with students and mentor them. What began as just a few students who talked to him grew as the teens spread the word to friends they knew were in similar situations. The teens began supporting each other.

Going to the top

The issue with meeting the needs of the children impacted by the opioid epidemic isn't so much apathy but a resource problem. Gillott said while many of their students receive counseling or other social services while at school, the area has lacked certified child counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists.

Much of the country, particularly rural areas like Pike County, are in the same boat, even for adult psychiatric services. A 2015 report from Merritt Hawkins, a Texas-based physician search and consulting firm, calls the dearth of psychiatrists "the silent shortage." The report notes there are about 28,250 active psychiatrists across the nation - 916 in Ohio - with a skewed distribution that leaves shortages across much of the United States.

In Pike County, there's also a dearth of safe places for children after school, particularly options where finances and transportation aren't barriers.

Meanwhile, state efforts to address the opiate epidemic have been fueled by skyrocketing drug overdose deaths, jails and prisons bursting at the seams, and over-taxed budgets - the immediate problems. As a result, many of the efforts - at least the most talked about - have centered around reaching the addicted, getting them to treatment and out of jail to be productive citizens.

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Prevention efforts for children on a statewide level have centered around Start Talking! - an educational, messaging program aimed at helping parents and other adults have meaningful conversations with children about drugs. Children of addicts aren't really the target audience for such a program - they live the drug life.

"The problem around here in southern Ohio isn't a drug problem, it's a mental health problem," Crabtree said.

Gillott has seen mental health concerns — anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts — even in kids not directly impacted by drugs and addiction.

While the state is in the process of getting teachers trained to do PAX — an evidence-based approach to embed self-management lessons within their daily routines — implementation will take time. PAX aims to address mental health by providing at an early age some of those skills the Waverly teens are getting now through group therapy twice a week at the Pike County YMCA.

The group therapy came after a dozen of the girls were able to get the attention of legislators along with others in the community. Two days before Thanksgiving, Crabtree took them for a meeting he'd arranged with Speaker of the House Cliff Rosenberger because he felt the state needed to do something to help the children impacted by the opiate epidemic.

"I didn't think they were going to do anything. I didn't think he was listening," Faith Butler said, noting although Gov. John Kasich was at the meeting, he seemed distracted with other things.

But then things began moving.

The YMCA began piloting Hurt to Hope Jan. 15 and while they haven't received any funding from the state yet, there is funding available now through the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, said Kim Conley, Pike County YMCA director.

"Central Ohio YMCA/Circleville branch has provided us with a bus temporarily to assist with transportation, identifying the urgency of this barrier and stepping up until the delivery of two vehicles from the state," Conley said.

Waverly Baptist Church and its Pastor Josh Remy also has offered two vans for transportation and are recruiting volunteers. Currently, Hurt to Hope is serving 25 students and will be expanding to serve 75. Conley said they intend Hurt to Hope to expand even more to serve 250 students countywide which would require additional sites where kids can meet.

Conley hopes the program will help students not feel alone by providing them a place to go and re-establish opportunities that allow them to be kids. She also hopes it provides them "the power to break the cycle by communicating with their peers to identify resources to nurture their needs."

"These initial 12 young ladies are determined to pioneer change for those that are dealing with the same or similar issues ...  (I want the kids in the program to realize) people do care and are willing to listen and, above all, that they are loved," Conley said.

On a state level, the teens also have been cited as the impetus for the OhioCorps bill introduced last month. The bill aims to create a mentoring programs between college students and teens impacted by poverty and the opiate epidemic.

The goal is to provide teens the support and help to develop a college plan and, if they meet certain criteria, they'll receive at least a $1,000 OhioCorps scholarship. Meanwhile, the college students receive credit and a stipend.

If passed, $1.1 million of the state's general fund will be dedicated to fund a two-year pilot of OhioCorps in southeastern Ohio. The results of the pilot would then be presented to legislators to consider whether it should extend and expand the program.

During his State of the State address earlier this month, Kasich mentioned the teens, saying he "was so grateful" Rosenberger asked him to meet with them and "would think I would care enough about them." He mentioned not only what the state is doing, but how the community is coming together.

According to Conley, numerous agencies have become involved including Pike Pet Pals, Elizabeth's Hope, Bristol Village, Paint Valley ADAMH, and Pike County Outreach.

"I believe, if we can carry this out and have it be something that is sustaining in Pike County that can be spread across our state and across our country, we can begin to deal with the problem of rural poverty that has nagged this country since Bobby Kennedy did his tour 50 years," Kasich said during the State of the State address.

For the teens involved so far, many are showing signs of healing.

"Their level of insight and self-awareness is amazing ... I think coming together as a group has helped them understand they're not alone," said therapist Joy Puckett.

They're making plans - Ashtyn hopes to be a veterinarian, psychiatrist, or therapist while Faith is planning to become a certified phlebotomist by time she graduates high school so she can do that while pursuing a nursing degree. But most of all, they've found their voices.

"Don't keep it in because it just gets worse," Faith advised.