Recovery high schools could help teens before addiction takes hold: B.C. parents
VANCOUVER — Parents whose children started using drugs as teens and struggled through addiction to the point of fatally overdosing say recovery high schools that provide professional support for students could save lives.
Their calls for change are being supported by the BC Centre on Substance Use, the Canadian Mental Health Association and the operator of an Ontario recovery high school — the only one in the country — though it’s closing down due to lack of funding.
Janice Walker’s son was 15 when he began using marijuana, mouthwash, ecstasy and any other drug he could get. She said he was kicked out of school and placed in an alternative education program that didn’t help before he became an entrenched drug user who overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl at age 25.
“We could have only dreamed of something like that,” she said of recovery high schools, about three dozen of which exist in various U.S. states.