March 2016 - Family Services of Western Pennsylvania

A Newsletter of Family Services of Western Pennsylvania
SPRING ● 2016
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Stock
Not Going Back ..................................... P. 1
Upcoming Events ................................. P. 1
National Spank Out Day ........................ P. 2
Baby Bank Baby Shower ....................... P. 2
New Office Opening: Kittanning ........... P. 2
Q&A: Combating the Opioid Epidemic . P. 3
20th Anniversary Golf Outing ............... P. 4
Point of Entry for Services:
1-888-222-4200
Photo by Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
Not Going Back: The Heroin fixed the OCD, but
Made the Rest of his Life Unravel
By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Joseph Aquiline tried to end his obsessions
at age 14 by taking 80 tablets of Benadryl. It
didn’t kill him, and a doctor’s subsequent
prescription of Xanax, for anxiety, backfired
badly. A friend suggested that he would feel
great if he took a bunch of them at once,
and that experiment led him down a path of
pills.
Now 38, Mr. Aquiline is still dealing with
depression and obsessions — he
compulsively counts the bricks in walls or
the syllables in sentences, for instance. But
he’s also two years clean and applying to
colleges, looking to turn his skills with
electronics and music into a career, in part
because he ended up in Allegheny County
Mental Health Court.
Mr. Aquiline, who grew up in Penn Hills, had
held jobs for years at a stretch. But he saw
his life start to unravel in his mid-20s, after a
girlfriend persuaded him to try heroin.
“It felt amazing. It just took all my anxiety,
all my [obsessive compulsive disorder]
away,” he said. “I was always a humble
person, a quiet person, and it made me
completely different. ... I had never found a
medication that helped that much.”
Unfortunately, it’s addictive, and he had to
steal to support the habit. The lows were
very low — like the time in 2001 when he
urged police to kill him and hurled a knife at
them. A series of convictions culminated in
2002 with a maximum sentence of seven
years for robbery.
Imprisoned, untreated, anxieties out of
control, he eventually managed to calm
himself with obsessive reading, focused on
religion, music, business, psychiatry. He
became a Buddhist.
Mr. Aquiline has participated in a lot of
rehab programs over the years, and most
have focused on drugs, barely addressing
mental health, job training or life skills.
When free, he struggled to pay bills and
avoid temptation.
(Continued on page 3)
Upcoming Events
Open Your Heart to a Senior Hearty Party
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Senator John Heinz History Center
Westmoreland Community Foundation
Day of Giving
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Pittsburghgives.org
Family Services of Western PA
20th Anniversary Charity Golf Classic
Monday, May 16, 2016
Pittsburgh Field Club
(See related story on page 4)
ParentWISE Ice Cream Blast
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Kirk Nevin Arena, Greensburg
To learn more about any of the listed
events, please contact Chrystal Walsh at
412.820.2050, ext. 462, or via email at
[email protected].
National “Spank Out” Day
By Bob Brinker, Parent/Community Educator, ParentWISE Program
“I was spanked as a child and I turned out
just fine. The problem today is parents are
afraid to spank their children. This is why
they are so out of control.” Over the many
years I have worked with parents, I have
repeatedly heard such comments from the
parents I have worked with. It might be true
that most people turn out fine that are
spanked (many don’t get cancer from
smoking either), but it was not the spanking
that caused us to “turn out fine.” Though I
am not a research buff, those that are such
as Dr. Michele Knox of the University
Toledo have extensively studied all the
research on spanking and it shows that
spanking does not change behavior long
term and, most importantly, spanking
causes harm and detriment to our
children’s growth and development and
damage to the parent/child relationship.
April has been set aside in recognition of
child abuse prevention. We at ParentWISE
give recognition to the month by wearing
our blue ribbon pins and continuing in our
mission to help parents learn effective
nurturing ways to parent their children. I
was excited when I recently received
information that the Gundersen National
Child Protection Training Center is giving
out mini-grants to promote April 30th as
National Spank Out Day by bringing light to
the negative consequences of spanking.
We are applying for the grant and have
come up with a plan to implement. Staff
from throughout our agency will join in our
efforts by educating and encouraging the
families they work with to eliminate
spanking in their parenting practices and
utilize nonviolent ways of parenting their
children.
If we are to discuss the issue of spanking,
we must do this with sensitivity. This is not
about making anybody feel guilty. Yes, my
mother and father spanked me growing up
(I’ll leave it to others to decide if I turned
out fine or not). My parents also put butter
on my burns, allowed me to ride in the car
without a car seat, rubbed my gums with
whiskey when I had a toothache, and gave
me paregoric, an opium-based medicine,
when I had a stomach ache. My parents
acted in these ways because that is what
they knew to do. As parents we make our
decisions based on knowledge we have at
the time. As we acquire new knowledge we
are free to change outdated parenting
aggression? When an adult hits another
adult, we refer to it as assault. When we hit
our child, it is referred to as discipline.
practices. New research in the field of brain
development is causing us to look again at
child development and how our interactions
impact our children’s growth both physically
and psychologically.
Violence is defined as “an act carried out
with the intention, or perceived intention, of
causing physical pain or injury to another
person.” Here is the definition of corporal
punishment: “the use of physical force with
the intention of causing a child to experience
pain, but not injury, for the purpose of
correction or control of the child’s
behavior.” The similarities in these two
definitions make me very uncomfortable.
Have you considered the fact that when a
child hits another child, we refer to it as
Support the Baby Bank
Our ParentWISE program and the PACT
Program (Pregnant Adolescent Childcare
Training) will be operating a new Baby Bank
with vital baby supplies like diapers,
strollers, and car seats available for free to
community members in need. Donations
can be made to underwrite specific items
e.g. a one month supply of 200 diapers and
400 wipes is $50 and a car seat or booster
seat is $100. You can give online at https://
secure.etransfer.com/FSWP/PBB.cfm
Individuals using the Baby Bank will be
introduced to the education resources of
ParentWISE, including classes like Raising
Safe Kids, DoctorDad & Nurturing Parenting.
For information on the Baby Bank, please
contact Chrystal walsh at 412.820.2050 ext.
462 or via email at [email protected].
The United Nations Report on Violence
Against Children has called for the
elimination of all violence against children
including the use of corporal punishment.
Thirty-eight nations have abolished the use
of corporal punishment in all settings (guess
which country is not on the list). This is a
summary of the report:
“No violence against children is justifiable:
all violence against children is preventable.
justification of violence against children,
whether accepted as tradition or disguised
as discipline.”
Let’s join the cause. We at ParentWISE will
be happy to provide you with parenting and
child development information to use in
your work with families.
For information about Child Abuse
Prevention Month, National Spank Out Day,
or any information contained in this article
including information on parenting classes,
contact Bob at [email protected].
Kittanning Office Opening
Family Services has opened a new office
location at 314 S. Water Street in Kittanning,
Armstrong County. This newest location
provides drug and alcohol assessments and
outpatient services with a focus on cooccurring conditions, and is licensed by the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's
Department of Drug & Alcohol Programs.
Kelley Austin, Senior Manager of Outpatient
Services for Family Services, said the office
also has plans to offer Justice Related
Services, i.e., specialized services for
individuals who are involved in the criminal
justice system and are experiencing re-entry
into society.
The office can serve clients from Armstrong,
Clarion and Indiana Counties.
Q&A: Combating the Opioid Epidemic and Saving Lives
In 2015, the Allegheny County coroner reported that there were 246 deaths due to opioid
overdoses in the county. Westmoreland County has reported record overdose deaths for
four years in a row, peaking at 86 in 2015, most from opioid addictions.
This past autumn, Kelley Austin, Ph.D., Family Services Senior Manager of Outpatient
Services, and Dr. Sharon Kohnen, Psychiatrist, attended
an Overdose Prevention Training sponsored by the
Westmoreland County Drug Overdose Task Force at
Westmoreland County Community College in New
Kensington. The meeting was open to the public and
turn out was great! Overdose Prevention kits were
distributed that contained Naloxone (Narcan). The
overall mission? To help save a life.
Following is a Q&A that might help you save the life of
a loved who has overdosed on opioids:
Kelley: Naloxone has been popping up in the news a
lot lately as a controversial intervention for opioid
(pain pills, heroin) addiction. What’s the TRUTH about
naloxone?
Photo by Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
Kelley Austin and Dr. Sharon Kohnen
Dr. Kohnen: Naloxone is NOT a treatment for opioid with their Drug Overdose Prevention Kits
addiction. It IS a LIFE-SAVING intervention that can
prevent a death from opioid overdose. Some people have confused naloxone with
naltrexone (Vivitrol, an opioid blocker)Media
used forSponsor:
opioid addiction treatment. Some people are
mistakenly thinking naloxone is the main TREATMENT for opioid addiction. That’s not the
case at all! Naloxone is just an emergency intervention – one that I hope people will not
have to use. Treatment for addiction involves therapy, developing a support network and,
sometimes, other medications to assist in recovery.
Kelley: I hear people saying that by giving naloxone to someone who overdoses we may
actually encourage people to continue risky drug use – that maybe they’ll use more potent
opioid drugs because they know that they can be saved.
Dr. Kohnen: That’s just not reality! People who use heroin are usually afraid of dying but
feel powerless over the intoxication/withdrawal cycle. Loss of control over use is the
defining feature of addiction. People who are addicted use more and stronger opioids over
time because of changes in the brain that cause them to feel sick when opioid levels go
below a certain point.
Kelley: Sometimes clients say they don’t need naloxone because they don’t associate with
people who use heroin anymore.
Dr Kohnen: Overdoses do not just happen to people who use opioids repeatedly. Overdose
deaths include teenagers experimenting with pain pills for the first time; children who
found pills in mom’s purse; people who started a new prescription sleep pill while on their
usual pain pills; people who shared their prescription pain pills with a family member – ALL
of these people could be saved by naloxone being readily available to emergency
responders, schools, businesses and in people’s homes.
Kelley: We’ve got to get the word out to everyone about the benefits of naloxone and
empower them to PREVENT OVERDOSE! Anyone can ask their doctor for a naloxone
prescription that can be used for themselves or someone else. All CVS pharmacies and
many other local pharmacies now offer naloxone without a doctor’s prescription for a small
fee or through insurance. County programs offer free naloxone kits, like the ones we are
holding in the picture. Videos on how to prevent overdose and use naloxone properly are
available online at www.prescribetoprevent.com or Prevention Point Pittsburgh
(http://www.pppgh.org/).
For more information, check out these websites:
Westmoreland County Drug Overdose Task Force http://www.getinwestmoreland.info/
Allegheny County Overdose Prevention http://www.achd.net/overdoseprevention/
Not Going Back
continued from page 1
He faltered again in 2013, when police
responded to a drunken family argument
and had to subdue him. He was sentenced
to 11½ to 23 months in jail and was
released about a year ago, to the
supervision of Mental Health Court.
For a year, he has scraped by on a disability
check that barely covers rent, utilities and
food. Mental Health Court, though, got him
into comprehensive programs and
connected him to the state Office of
Vocational Rehabilitation, which is helping
with his bid for college.
“You’re doing so well, and it’s so great to
see,” said Judge Beth A. Lazzara, who runs
Mental Health Court, at Mr. Aquiline’s Dec.
14 review hearing.
“I’m not going back” to prison, he said in an
interview. “I like my life too much now.”
“Copyright ©, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
2016 all rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.”
Note: Mr. Aquiline’s success is a good
example of the positive results of
coordinating services with mental health
court, justice-related services, Allegheny
County and Family Services’ Community
Treatment Team.
Our Mission:
Empower people to reach
their full potential.
Empower people to reach their full potential...
Family Affairs
SPRING 2016
NONPROFIT ORG.
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PERMIT NO. 29
NEW KENSINGTON,
PA 15068
Family Services of Western
Pennsylvania is accredited by the
Council on Accreditation of
Services for Families and
Children, Inc.
Family Services of Western
Pennsylvania is a non-profit
organization declared tax-exempt
by the federal government (under
section 501 C 3 of the IRS code)
and the Commonwealth of Pa.
A copy of our official registration
may be obtained from the
Pennsylvania Department of
State by calling toll free from
within Pennsylvania 800-7320999. Registration does not imply
endorsement All donations to
Family Services of Western
Pennsylvania are tax deductible
to the full extent of the law.
Family Services of Western
Pennsylvania receives funding
from the United Way’s of
Allegheny, Washington and
Westmoreland Counties.
dreamagainpa.org
The Top Five Benefits of Golfing with Family Services
1.
It's good for your mental health. Like any exercise, golf is simply brilliant for one’s
mental health as the brain releases endorphins after playing, which elevates
mood and reduces the perception of pain.
2.
It's a great stress reducer. Everybody needs stress relief in their life, and golf is
one such place where you can find a place to relax and enjoy the spare time
that you have.
3.
It's a great form of socializing. Though you might not think of socializing as a
great benefiter of health, talking and interacting with people on a regular basis
is a great way to keep both your spirits and general health high.
4.
It’s great exercise. Golf is an excellent cardiovascular exercise and will strengthen your heart the
longer you play.
5.
It’s educational! This year, all funds raised from our golf outing will be used to support at-risk youth
in the pursuit of their post-secondary educational dreams.
This year
at the
Pittsburgh
Field Club
To learn more about how you can support our upcoming 20th Anniversary Golf Classic, visit us online at
dreamagainpa.org. Or contact Chrystal Walsh at 412-820-2050, ext. 462 (or email at [email protected].)