The protective value of friends

Today I've been listening to a podcast from Ultimate Youth Worker on the topic of "Youth Drug & Alcohol" with Dr Kat Daley. I'd encourage you to listen to it, but not necessarily because you will learn stuff to help you with youth dealing with drug and alcohol issues. Something else stood out for me.

Dr Daley is a researcher, and in this podcast she talks about some of the differences that came out when talking with males and females. She was not looking for these differences. In fact, when she was doing some earlier research looking for those differences she came to the conclusion that there weren't any - apart from pregnancies.

In this discussion though, her comments are confronting. She speaks of a link between substance abuse and sexual abuse, with sexual abuse leading to substance abuse often with self-harming in between. Confronting. Perhaps not surprising, but it is something that is worth thinking about.

Anyway, the comment that stood out for me was the conversations that happened with the girls right at the beginning of the interview. She described it as 'small talk', the kind of questions that adolescent girls would normally talk about with each other. But these girls were asking these questions to Dr Daley because they don't have a group of female friends around them.

Think about this for a moment. These girls are asking these questions to Dr Daley because they don't have a group of friends around them. Is it likely that they are in this situation because they don't or didn't have a group of friends around them that would help to keep them from ending up here?

In my role as a youth director, I have learned that one of the best ways to protect people from being abused is to ensure they are fully involved in the group. Our camp and group leaders work to make this happen and if we see someone sitting on their own, we will talk with them so they know they are part of the group.

Why not invite people join your game?

But we're adults. A better way is for teenagers to keep an eye out for those teens who are sitting on their own and include them in the group. And I mean fully include them. There are a number of good reasons to do this, and one of them is that this helps to protect people from a dismal future.

How can you help the teenagers in your group to be a better help to each other?