Finding Resources for Troubled Teens and Young Adults

I'm starting this blog as a place for parents/families of "at risk" teens and young adults to find support, resources and fellowship.

First, I am a parent who's traveled down this road for more years that I care to think about. My journey started, like most, in working with my son's school system through the development of an IEP, which led to assessments, psychiatrists, psychologists, self-help groups, lawyers, court systems, wilderness program, and finally - a long-term drug and alcohol treatment program. More to the story, but enough for now. Let's just say that I feel like both my wife and I got P.h.D's in an area we never dreamed of when our kids were young.

As painful as it was at times, I wouldn't change the path we took or the depth of our industry immersion training. In the early days, I/we totally felt alone and had no clue how to find the right resources or even know what questions to ask. In our case, we were kind of embarrassed and really didn't want to talk with relatives or neighbors.....at least early on. We got over that one, but it took time. Through all of this (an there's so much to talk about), a friend of mine who knew what I was going through, asked if I would consider helping to raise money for a church based teen coffee house in Denver. The church was attempting to create a place for struggling teens to get help, job experience, etc. Well, very long story, but soon I somehow became the resident "expert" (there is no such thing) on the subject of "at risk" teens and young adults. I started volunteering to coach parents through Solid Grounds. It opened my eyes to just how many families were dealing with the same thing. Thus my new career was launched. I started doing some business consulting for different programs and learned a ton - some good, some not so good, but all useful.

I philosophically developed a strong position about the importance of early intervention and full parent engagement.....if at all humanly possible. That's the short story reason I started Parent and Family Advocates, LCC - "helping parents, help themselves. " I wanted to give parents the help they needed so they could become advocates for their own son or daughter.

Through this blog, I will be posting qualified resources that I run across in my travels working and advocating for families in some type of crisis with a troubled teen or young adult. The resources I blog about will all specialize in working with 15-25 year olds. They will likely be lawyers, doctors, treatment programs, drug and alcohol programs, self-help programs, books, articles, etc.

I invite readers of the blog to comment, provide resources they've run across (positive and negative) and build fellowship with the community. I think the difficult economic times make self advocacy even more important. These difficult economic times make finding and affording qualified help for our troubled teens and young adults even more difficult. If this blog is useful for you, please revisit every week or two and pass on to others that might benefit. The more readers and contributors, the more value it will bring to the whole community of parents needing this kind of help. Thank you.