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Adolescent Counseling Services (ACS) and Palo Alto High School PTSA to host community forum on teenage substance abuse
"Breaking the Stigma: Teenage Substance Abuse" will be open to all members of the community
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Adolescent Counseling Services (ACS), a community-based nonprofit agency dedicated to the healthy social and emotional development of teens, will partner with the Palo Alto High School (Paly) PTSA to host a community forum on teenage substance abuse on Thursday, November 12, 2009.
The event will be held from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at Palo Alto High School in the English Resource Center located in the library. The address is 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301.
The forum series called “Breaking the Stigma” was implemented last spring by ACS as a way to combat the stigmas surrounding teenage mental health issues. The first set of forums in the series was held in June 2009 and focused on teenage depression. The upcoming forum will focus on teenage substance abuse.
“The truth of the matter is that most of the time substance abuse is not about the substance,” said Brenda Stern, Program Director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment (ASAT) Program at ACS. “It is about something deeper, such as underlying mental health issues that manifest in the form of substance abuse.”
ACS Executive Director, Dr. Philippe Rey has organized an impressive panel for the forum. Keynote presenter Stephanie Brown, Ph.D. is the director of Addictions Institute, an outpatient counseling and therapy program in Menlo Park, California. Panelists include Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Tom Tarshis, M.D.; Health Education Manager at Palo Alto Medical Foundation Becky Beacom; The Camp Recovery Center’s Rebecca Cable; ACS Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Program Director Brenda Stern, RAS, NBAE Certified Addictions Counselor; and Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC) Assistant Director and AOD Counselor Martha Cravens, PhD.
The forum is open to all members of the community. Dr. Rey encourages anyone interested in the issue of teenage substance abuse to participate in the event. “The goal of our forums on Breaking the Stigma is to give parents more strategies to keep in touch with their children,” said Dr. Rey. “They will be in a better position to understand the pressures their kids face and thus better communicate parental concerns and expectations. This is especially important with difficult topics such as substance use.”
For more information about ACS, call (650) 424-0852, email info@acs-teens.org or visit ACS online at http://www.acs-teens.org.
About ACS
ACS’s mission is to empower teens and their families in our community to realize their emotional and social potential through counseling and preventive education. Established in 1975, ACS relies on the generosity of the community to offer critical interventions and mental health services to over 3,000 individuals annually, building a better future for tomorrow. ACS offers year-round services to San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, including an On-Campus Counseling Program, the Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Program, and the After-School Counseling Program.
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