Adolescent Counseling Services’ Resource Blog

April is Alcohol Awareness Month: What You Should Know

National Alcohol Awareness Month was first started in 1987 by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) to create awareness about the use of alcohol and the serious consequences associated with its misuse. The NCADD reports that teens who experiment with alcohol before age 15 are four times more likely to become alcohol […]

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Marijuana is Most Popular With Teens, How to Notice the Signs of Use

Since marijuana use among teens is thought to be more widespread than alcohol, About.com has posted some very informative statistics about marijuana use amongst teens. These statistics come from trusted government studies and prevention organizations and they tell a powerful story about when our children begin using substances like marijuana. Here are just a few: […]

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Spring Fever or Loss of Motivation: How to Help Your Underachieving Teen

By Jennifer Jones, LCSW, Site Director, Palo Alto High School It’s that time of year; the long winter is over, trees are blossoming, the temperature is warming, and we all want to go to the beach instead of to work.  That’s why Spring Break was invented.  But what if a week of vacation doesn’t revive […]

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New Study Finds US Adolescent Substance Abusers Started Using at Age 14

A new study published in the April issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry found many alarming statistics about what age US children begin using substances such as; alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, and harder narcotics. In the study, Joel Swendsen, of the University of Bordeaux in France, and colleagues analyzed data from a U.S. survey […]

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Affordable Care Act Provides Teens Access to Mental Health

As the US Supreme Court sits in deliberation over legal issues that surround the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (ie. health care reform); one group of health care professionals, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has stepped out as supporters of the bill. “This law has already helped maintain or improve access to preventive services for […]

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Helping Teens as They Look into the Future

by Martha Chan, M.A., LMFT, Site Director for Terman Middle School and parent of Gunn High School graduates, class of ’99 and class of ’03 I want to carry forward some of the resilience concepts that my colleague, Chris Chiochios, wrote about in an earlier newsletter: accepting our children for who they are and helping them to […]

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