An interview with Don Carney, Director of YMCA Restorative Services and Marin County Youth Court . This is the first in a series of Marin Healthy Youth Partnerships member profiles. MHYP members represent over a dozen leadership areas, collaborating to support a common mission to reshape community norms around youth substance use. Sector representatives include youth-serving organizations, parents, business, media, schools, law enforcement, religious/fraternal, civic/volunteer groups, healthcare professionals, local government agencies and other organizations involved in the reduction of substance abuse.
“The gap between what parents know and what teens know about the drug scene here is huge,” is how Don Carney opens our conversation. He informs me bluntly, “Parents are out of the loop.”
After four decades of working with young people involved in substance use in Marin County, Don’s ongoing on-the-ground contact with thousands of teens and families gives him a unique vantage point from which to share some advice worth noting. At age 72, he is still fully engaged in tracking both the big picture and our little corner of the world: the science, the national landscape and our own local trends.
Some realities are alarming:
40% of Tam Union High School District 11th grade students reported using marijuana within the past month, and 47% reported using alcohol during the same period, according to the California Healthy Kids Survey from 2018. (New results from the 2020 study will be released this fall.)
It appears that e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) is killing and hospitalizing young men predominantly. To date there have been 60 deaths and more than 2,668 hospitable admissions for lung damage that points to vitamin E acetate, a component mostly used in black-market cannabis cartridges.
All published marijuana impact medical studies are based on 15% THC levels, when in reality, 20-38% are the THC levels found in today’s marijuana plants, while other cannabis products and concentrates contain up to 99% THC.
Action Items for Parents
Despite the knowledge gaps, Don asserts there is plenty we can do to influence behaviors and take care of our children. The keys he offers coalesce around attention, attachment and agency.
Pay Attention to factors that compel our children to try and then continue using substances: “Stress is what keeps marijuana on the roster of most teens’ go-to coping strategies,” Don explains. “That’s not according to me, that’s what the young people report.” Stress is toxic. During every 12-hour Harm Reduction training he leads for parents and teens across the county, each participant completes a full substance use inventory. Having built trust with Don and the peer group, each young person provides a surprisingly explicit and honest assessment of what has “worked” and what hasn’t, and what they anticipate using in the future. “Marijuana stays on the list almost every time,” according to Don. Why? “Their answer is always the same: ‘It helps with stress.’” (Unfortunately, we know that perception is often based on how the adolescent brain becomes dependent on the drug.)
Consistency between what parents do and what they say is also key. Don hears from teens again and again that they inventory every single substance under their parent’s roof, whether locked up or not. They are on high alert for contradictions. “Kids follow parent’s behaviors. It is very hard to separate your behavior from your child’s in a way that is effective.”
Next: Attachment. Attachment theory proposes that the strength of the parent-child bond is a major influencer on human well-being and healthy functioning. Don theorizes that many young people are experiencing an attachment deficit. An antidote? “Stay in close contact with your teenager, closer than you think you need to,” he advises, even as peer relationships take up much of the relationship space in teens’ lives. “For example, have dinner together more often. Consider not bringing your child’s friend on your next vacation with you.”
Teens tell Don that adults and schools focus so much on their future, that they are left feeling uncared for in the present. “They aren’t living for the future, they are alive now,” he emphasizes.
And finally: Agency. “We don’t give young people enough agency early enough in their lives,” Don explains. He observes that schools are both overburdened with performance mandates and too under-resourced to truly relate to students as full humans. When their needs — for support, connection, attention and efficacy — aren’t met, they take it upon themselves to numb or suppress these needs with substances. “Community-building practices should start in elementary school, so we can reorient our focus to ensure values and relationships are at the center of the learning experience.”
Parents can influence schools to build in emotional intelligence practices and reinforce student agency by offering meaningful choices and integrating real-world connections into the way academic subjects are presented and explored. Parents can also supplement with involvements that give students an authentic voice and role in their own community that focuses on the now, as much as it may be an investment in their future.
Support Your Teens in Taking the Lead
Marin Healthy Youth Partnerships provides one such opportunity through its student internships on its Youth Advisory Council, which trains teens to deliver peer-to-peer substance education sessions to other teens across the county.
The YMCA Marin County Youth Court that Don directs also serves up an excellent opportunity for genuine agency. This innovative program, now in its 15th year of operation, was the first of its kind to infuse a youth court program with restorative and trauma-informed practices. Every Thursday evening at the Marin County Courthouse, students convene with Don and their peers in front of a Marin County judge to consider the actions of a youth who has been referred by the Marin Probation Department.
The procedures begin with a young person who presents the client’s case to all. Then the teens ask their own questions face-to-face to learn more about the client’s circumstances, personal reflections on the offense, and their support system. Next, all adults and the client and advocate exit, leaving the young volunteers to convene and debate collectively as they review a recommended restorative plan that has been co-created by the client and advocates. The jury can go outside the recommended plan but must co-create the revised plan with the client and advocates.
More than 4,000 student volunteers have participated in co-creating restorative plans for more than 1,275 client cases. In the process, they are exposed to and get to enact the founding principles of restorative justice, based on the idea that people can best resolve their own conflicts directly, by taking responsibility for the harm and identifying a way to repair it, including repairing relationships that were impacted by harmful actions.
Effective? The evidence: 95% of the clients complete their obligations, which almost always include serving on the Youth Court themselves. And compared to a 28% recidivism rate in the traditional juvenile justice system, the rate for Youth Court clients is just 6%. Marin is fortunate to have such a well-established diversion program that places teens at the center of a process that results in fewer of their peers entering into the prison pipeline for first offenses.
After a shoplifting arrest, one Youth Court client Bella reflected, “My court hearing was honestly the greatest turning point in my life. It showed me that I had to pick myself up and repair the damage I had done. I learned through Youth Court how to build trust back with my parents and my sister. I came to Youth Court for the next couple of weeks and helped others take responsibility for their actions – and through this I realized I was also helping myself. I do not regret getting caught, I regret my actions, and because of that and the steps I took to fix those actions, I have become a better person.”
For our teens, witnessing and participating in this kind of experience could be considered the most healthy introduction to substance use, as substances are a part of many of the offenses. And it’s a productive way to fortify them with the attention, attachments and agency that builds their capacity to make healthy choices in all areas of their lives. Don adds, “We need to change the narrative of success for our children away from being about achievement and more about satisfaction and happiness.”
To find out more about the YMCA Marin County Youth Court, click here.
Some Discussion Questions for You and Your Teen:
Why do you think so many teens in Marin use substances, more than in other areas of California?
What is your view on parents using substances?
How manageable is the amount of stress in your life? What actions help you cope with stress?
What connections are there for you between how you spend your days now (school, family, extracurriculars) and the world outside school and your future in that world?