WELCOME !
Photos from 2002 travels!

Teen life, however, has continued much the same with all the challenges natural to adolescence. So, LEGACY OF HOPE® has been on the road traversing America, including longgggggg airport security checks and dozens of pat downs later!

We expanded our base of information with more surveys of middle school and high school teens, particularly in rural America. Many communities added evening programs for parents and city leaders to our visits. The results were rewarding as adults became more aware of teen realities and motivated to make change. And we enjoyed continued camaraderie at many statewide conferences for FCCLA teens and advisors and for school counselors, exchanging ideas and mutual support with one and all.

HIGHLIGHTS

Presentations have expanded in the recovery world. We built new and valued relationships as LEGACY OF HOPE was shared at two significant recovery conferences: Women’s Healing Conference sponsored by The Betty Ford Center, Hazelden and The Caron Foundation; and the New England Association of Addiction Recovery.

We are also celebrating the first full year for the weekly newspaper column

It's Not Easy Being a Teen in the Wellington Daily News, Wellington, Kansas. You'll have a chance to read excerpts below.

THANKS!

We THANK everyone of the schools, associations and foundations we worked with this school year for their continued recognition of the impact and catalytic power of dance and drama in prevention, intervention, and inspiration of HOPE!

Unfortunately, the school’s budget has declined year after year, as budgets have in many rural schools. The counselor reflected how the high school had held successful groups on campus in the past. The counseling department had even trained teachers to run the groups; and the district had funded substitute teachers in classrooms to free teachers up to run them. Two years ago, however, the groups were eliminated due to school budget cuts and higher priority allocations to sports programs.

An additional problem common to rural America surfaced: gossip. As a result, secrecy was common in the community. Some teens shared on surveys that they would like to have given their names to be in groups but feared gossip and backlash so refrained from doing so.

Studies of alcoholics in recovery have suggested that a large percentage of alcoholics who began drinking alcohol as teens did so as an attempt to self-medicate depression. If middle schools and high schools across the country devote resources to teen depression, suicidal thoughts, rage and violence, the results may well be a reduction in alcohol and other drug abuse, suicide and violence; improved academics; and the more successful futures for our children.

INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS: For informational materials and demo video geared for
adult venues, professional meetings, conferences, associations and workshops, call 800-707-1977 or email: Susie@legacyofhope.com
To "Contents of News of Hope"

Pick up a copy for your classroom, your kids, and anyone you have wanted to get the message. View it together and the conversations will unfold between you and someone you love.

To "Contents of News of Hope"

Eileen M. O’Connor in the Monitor on Psychology, September, 2001 states,
“More undergraduate and graduate students are reporting depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, learning disabilities, and most commonly, problems adapting to college life.”

Over the last ten years, a progressive decline in mental health resources has occurred across all aspects of the American landscape. Managed care decimated health insurance reimbursements for therapy; school districts cut funding for school counseling. As a result, our youth have been left to their own devices to cope with emotional distress.

By the time they reach college, they are more likely to seek psychological services, according to O’Connor, perhaps “because there is less stigma” in college to speak up about emotional concerns and/or because colleges are seeing the natural extension from high school of increased mental health problems in our youth.

it takes a society to raise healthy kids!……Colleges are creating stress management fests where college youth learn to cope with feelings through a wide variety of nontraditional techniques including massage, acupuncture, biofeedback, meditation, Tai Chi movement, nutrition, support groups and more.

I have presented stress management De-Stress for SuccessÒ workshops to high school teens for seven years; and they love it!

Teens and young adults have the need to see themselves free of the expectations and demands of family, peers and their own internal critical voices.

To "Contents of News of Hope"

Starting in the pre-teen years, we make the transition from accepting our parents every word as well as those of teachers and society, and start to think for ourselves, defining our own personal and collective perspective on life.

A popular word with teens from coast to coast, north and south is "annoying".

In my generation, adults may have said teens were annoying, but in reverse, our parents were known to "bug" us. Today's teens love to share how "annoying" the habits, behaviors and demands of parents, siblings, teachers and even friends can be!

Webster defines "annoying" to mean: troublesome; pestering; a nuisance; vexatious: harassing, instituted without sufficient grounds, serving only to cause annoyance. The word makes a lot of sense for today's teens and their reduced level of respect for parents.

The teens summed it up with an honest and direct statement: "Annoying is when we don't have our own way".

To "Contents of News of Hope"

The pastor also polled the teens on how many of them had ever sat around the dinner table and discussed with their parents character, ethics, right and wrong? A mere 1 out of 12 had had such family conversations. The pastor spoke further of a study in which 90% of the teens at high school graduation had never discussed the subject of right and wrong with their parents. They really did not know what constituted right from wrong. They did believe, however, that it was right not to get caught doing something wrong.

The point of the discussion was to motivate the congregation to question why parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other adults in a community do not make the necessary effort to properly educate our young in values, character, and spiritual matters any more. The pastor asked the congregation to comment from the pews. Naturally, I put in my two cents!

I was able to share that teens are actually hungry for meaning in life including a concept of a God that is real, a God that responds to their everyday overwhelm and insecurities, a God that is able to help them make sense of the enormous barrage of messages and influences today that promote buying, using, indulging, extreme-living, and self-serving in every area of their lives.

I shared that I mention God, non-denominationally, in every school assembly I do. I make an honest admission to them that I am only able to share with them some of my most personal triumphs and tragedies because I have found a benevolent, caring, miracle-working power greater than myself in this world, and I choose to call that God. I remind them that we are emotional, mental, physical and spiritual creatures. To be healthy in this world, we must be aware of these in our lives and work to make progress on all four aspects of ourselves on a regular basis.

I told the congregation I have never been censured, even by a public school, for mentioning God. In fact, it has been sadly amusing how many times a student (and/or a teacher) at a high school will subtly amble forward after a program to quickly whisper in passing, “Thanks you for mentioning God!” You see, in my ten years of taking hope and spiritual encouragement to our teens, they have responded with applause and even standing ovations (particularly in the South) after I have made these statements. Teens ARE hungry for God in their lives.

In my thousands of conversations with troubled teens, it is clear that many teens have lost faith, some teens in EVERYTHING except, perhaps, alcohol, drugs, the party scene, and an option to commit suicide. Even the highest achievers have no real faith in a power other than their own determination, extreme focus on achieving, and the belief that they are somehow supposed to control success in their lives. Excessive stress levels and suicidal thoughts are the manifestation of an achiever’s spiritual bankruptcy.

Every one of the teens I have talked to also hungers to believe there is a God that really can help them out of despair. They want relief from their fear of not being loved by broken parents, fear of being unlovable and losers, fear of the future, fear of making wrong decisions, fear of being alone. But they do not know how to connect with that God. They feel somehow He forgot them, gave up on them, decided they weren’t worthy of Him a long time ago when their parents divorced or hit them or berated them or neglected them or worse.

I have spent many hours talking, emailing, and sharing stories with teens about the small and large miracles that God has worked in my life. They listen eagerly, urgently, needing hope and lessons in how to find a relationship with this loving force from inside their wacky world.

Today’s teens can actually relate very quickly to the concept of God in their lives. They need a relationship with a loving, reliable power in this world that won’t let them down as they feel work-absorbed, divorced, abusive, unavailable, overly-demanding parents may have. But that power, God, must be real. And God becomes real to them only when at least one adult in their lives models that God. We as adults become God with skin for teens when we listen with our hearts as well as our heads to a teen’s concerns. We model God when we choose compassion, patience, courtesy and kindness instead of criticism and control.

To "Contents of News of Hope"

“The chances that your children will delay sex, pregnancy,
and parenthood are significantly increased if their futures appear bright .”
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP)

http://www.teenpregnancy.org

The following are SAMPLE TOPICS and ARTICLE SUMMARIES.
Web Addresses are given for Full Articles on JTO Web Site