Youth survey shows decline in underage drinking, rise in suicidal thoughts
A new youth survey in Bonneville County shows that underage drinking is going down, but abuse of other substances is on the rise.
For the first time since 2009, Bonneville County youth were asked in a mass survey about substance use and mental health. The Bonneville Youth Development Council partnered with the Office of Drug Policy and Bonneville County school districts to put out the survey to students in the sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades. Some of the findings were good. For example, alcohol abuse is going down. But the survey found there is a rise in vaping as well as in suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“The youth are using substances as self-medication,” said Lezhai Gulbransen, executive director of the Bonneville Youth Development Council. “And they’re either self-medicating or they’re doing worse which is suicide. And so we’re seeing that it all kind of stems together and so it’s a natural thing that we need to address both and early on.”
The groups were surprised to find there is also a rise in the use of inhalants among the younger students. According to the survey, students said parents are not communicating with them about these topics. The Bonneville Youth Development Council said this information is important when it comes to helping children.
“Without that information then, we’re kind of doing a guesswork of what our kids are doing here in Bonneville County,” Gulbransen said. “And if we don’t know for sure, then the programs and the support and the help we’re putting out there — it really is kind of guesswork. Is this a need ’cause if it’s not even a need then we are wasting a lot of our resources.”
“This is very valuable data for Bonneville County to be able to move forward,” said Dr. Jim Hopla, professor at BYU-Idaho. “But if we’re looking for anything really shocking in there, there wasn’t, necessarily. But we do see that there are some attitudes and some norms out there that we need to address.”
The group also said that the community has great parents and children, but they shouldn’t ignore what is going on.
“We are a bigger city. We’re growing,” Hopla said. “And to think that we don’t have problems here is very naive. Parents do need to be vigilant. They do need to visit with their kids and talk about these things. We can’t have a mentality that it can’t happen here. It can. It can happen anywhere.”
The Bonneville Youth Development Council is already implementing a new program called Bonneville Bounces Back to help the youth. The first meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 10 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the ARTitorium in Idaho Falls. Youth resiliency and taking control will be discussed.
