By Susan Misur, Register Staff
smisur@newhavenregister.com

GUILFORD — Students’ drug habits, alcohol use and other dangerous behaviors are often “invisible” to the community, and TEAM Guilford Kids is trying to bring the issues out into the open.

The group recently held a forum at the Guilford Free Library to present final results of a Developmental Assets Survey distributed to 1,542 middle- and high-schoolers in the fall.

Results show what positive influences youths feel, along with what unsafe activities they’ve tried.

TEAM Guilford Kids is hoping parents, community leaders and students will work together by starting programs to help kids expand their values and life skills, which will steer them away from risk-taking behaviors.

“So much of kids getting harmed is invisible,” said Bo Huhn, one of the founders of TEAM Guilford.

“The problems happen, the families are embarrassed, people don’t know what to say, and it all kind of gets left alone.”

Huhn said he felt the most surprising aspect of the survey results is that 10 percent to 15 percent of those students are “truly miserable and suffering.”

When asked if they have felt sad or depressed all or most of the time in the last month, 9 percent of students said yes, according to survey results, and 7 percent said they’ve attempted to kill themselves.

“I don’t think that many really tried, but the fact that they answered that way means they are feeling really unhappy, and it was more girls than boys attempting,” Huhn said.

Results say 24 percent have hit someone once or more in the past year, and 23 percent say they’ve been victims of physical violence in the last two years. Continued...

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When it comes to drinking, 52 percent said they first had more than one or two sips of alcohol when they were under 15 years old, and 6 percent reported they’ve ridden in a car with a driver who’d been drinking.

And 25 percent say they’ve used marijuana at least once in the last year, while 3 percent have used cocaine at some point.

The report further revealed that 4 percent of seventh-graders and 44 percent of high school seniors have had sex, and some admitted to using birth control seldom or never.

Lyne Landry, Youth and Family Services director, said because she works with kids every day the results don’t shock her.

But what she and other TEAM Guilford members were happily surprised to see is that town youths have more skills, like decision-making and family support, than they thought.

Results stated 76 percent of students feel they have a high level of family love and support, 55 percent do community service for an hour or more each week, and 72 percent are motivated to do well in school.

“We’re not starting at the bottom. I think our kids already have a lot of strengths, and I think that’s what we’re going to build on,” she said, adding that those who attended the forum have already offered ideas for new programs or ways to incorporate building assets among town youths.

Leslie Krumholz, a member of TEAM Guilford and program director for the Women and Family Life Center, said getting the word out to students is most important.

“There has to be partnership with kids or it would never work,” she said.

Call Susan Misur at 203-789-5742.

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