With a drug epidemic on the rise, alcoholism has taken a back seat when it comes to immediate concern to the public. As a child of a single mother with an alcohol problem, I know what it is like to feel all alone. Majority of my days were spent alone, with no one to help with my homework, and often times there was no food in the house. I wonder how my childhood would have turned out if I had a little guidance.
There are programs such as alcoholics anonymous and alanon to help alcoholics and their families cope with the emotional struggles of the situation. There is also organizations to help people who don’t have a place to live or food to eat. However, what would it look like to have a place where children can go to get help with their homework, have a warm meal offered to them, or even a safe place to sleep when their parent or parents are on a bender and are unsafe to be around or they are not around to fulfill parental duties.
If they are alerted, child services will step in and find a “safe place” for these children. However, there has been plenty of issues with these situations as well. Also, this doesn’t solve the problem of the cases that the public is unaware of. There are children who don’t want to say anything, because they are afraid to be pulled away from their families.
If there was a safe place for a child to go, that wouldn’t involve parental approval, maybe more kids would take advantage of it. If they knew that their parents wouldn’t get reprimanded or the government wouldn’t get involved, then more children would feel comfortable getting help.
I envision a place that these children could go to get hot food in their bellies, and help with their homework, but also a place that they wouldn’t feel alone. Even better than that, there would be other people who could relate to them. As an extension to this idea, there could be classes and/or meetings to emotionally and mentally build these children up. Or even go a step further and have programs for the parents who want to get better and make their family a priority. Even classes for the whole family to take together.
These children are just looking for some attention and interaction with people, but this sort of place would offer them more…HOPE.
This sounds like a really cool idea. I think you are really on to something about the fear children and parents/guardians have about seeking help–that they’ll be split up or punished somehow.
It made me think of a couple of things in terms of what you might do this semester. I’m just sharing things that came to mind, not at all prescribing what you should do! There are many possibilities and I want you to do what you are most passionate about and interested in. Anyway, here are the two things I was thinking:
1. Focus a campaign that attempts to explore the creation of a “pilot” program similar to the one you describe here. You will develop documents that are in support of such a program.
2. You focus on children and/or guardians, really narrowing on the stigma of seeking help. You might locate an existing non-profit or government program that caters to families dealing with alcoholism or addiction more broadly, and try to develop materials for them that address the exact problem you mention: stigma of getting help out of fear of punishment of somekind (e.g., splitting up family).
Looking forward to seeing what you work on!
I really appreciate and admire your decision to approach this tough, personal topic and look forward to seeing what you come up with throughout the semester if you chose to work on this. I have a different experience with alcoholism, growing up with two parents in the household, only one affected by this disorder. I would be really interested to learn more about your situation, as mine was a little more stable, yet probably had different difficulties as you, while also sharing some.
I was automatically intrigued by the title, but also the first sentence, as I’ve chosen the heroin/opioid epidemic to discuss. I think you have some great ideas when it comes to having an outlet for the child(ren) of these parents, as I never had someone outside of my family that I really talked to about this until recent years. Now, on the outs of my childhood, it is interesting to think of all of the things that could have gone differently and how I could be an entirely different person with the addition of my own sort of support group, besides my siblings.