Parents working together to prevent teen alcohol use
By Charlie Breitrose/Daily News staff
(Monday, January 15, 2007)

WESTBOROUGH -Keeping track of teens can be tough for parents and worrying about whether they are drinking or even doing drugs can be especially worrying, but some parents at Algonquin and Westborough high schools have created a network so they can keep in touch with each other. The Home Safety Network started in 2005 when a group of parents concerned about alcohol and drug use by teens. The issue came to the forefront in the towns served by Algonquin - Northborough and Southborough - when two students, sisters Meghan and Shauna Murphy were killed in an alcohol related accident.

Soon after the accident, the Home Safety Network hosted a meeting attended by about 300 people, said Ann Taggart, an Algonquin parent from Northborough who is also the group's chairwoman.

"We had a meeting called the Community Conversation, a large meeting, after the tragedy that occurred in this town where the Murphy sisters were killed," Taggart said. "A lot of people came together for that meeting."

One of the attendees was Bruce Tretter, a member of the Westborough School Committee. The meeting intrigued him and he looked at whether his town could start a similar group, then decided to see if Westborough could join forces with the Algonquin group, which it did.

Since the Community Conversation, the group has met regularly, Taggart said. The group has invited members of Westborough High Schools' Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) programs - formerly Students Against Driving Drunk to its meeting tomorrow night. Algonquin students working to raise awareness of alcohol will also speak at the meeting.

Also, John Badenhausen from Westborough's Youth and Family Services will talk about pressures facing teens today as well as services offered by his program, Taggart said.

Taggart hopes to attract some parents who are not part of the network, in the hopes of getting them to join. The network has about 80 households participating, mostly in Northborough and Southborough with a handful in Westborough.

Those who join agree to take steps to make sure gatherings at their house are safe and free of alcohol and drugs, Taggart said.

"(Parents) need to sign a pledge that basically says that you will do the best you can when you have kids at your house that they won't have alcohol or drugs," Taggart said. "And you will supervise any get-togethers you have at your house."

The network helps, Taggart said, because in the 21st century the parents of students do not always know each other. Members get a list of parents and they can call them up to check to see whether the gathering is being supervised.

Parties may not be very formal affairs, or even planned very far in advance, Tretter said.

"These days a kid flips open cell phone and calls a buddy say, Hey I'm at Ed's house,' and, boom, 30 kids show up," Tretter said.

One thing that Tretter hopes to discourage is parents hosting parties where they know kids will be drinking.

"I hear the rationale that it is what we did when I was a kid, or don't want my kid so unaware about alcohol that when get out into real world they will get in trouble," Tretter said. "Things have changed since we were kids. The laws against drinking and driving are a lot more strict."

There is also the social host liability law, Tretter said. People who host a party and let people drive home drunk, if the driver gets into an accident now the party hosts can also be liable, Tretter said.

Last year, a Westborough family was prosecuted under this law after a teen got in an drunk driving accident and injured a woman.

"These are things we are trying to educate people about - these are the new rules," Tretter said. "It is much smarter to figure way how to avoid (getting into that situation)."

The Home Safety Network meeting will be tomorrow, 7 to 8:30 p.m., in the Algonquin Regional High School cafeteria, 79 Bartlett St., Northborough.

More information about the group is available on-line at www.homesafetynetwork.org.

 

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