Parents, are you missing signs in your own home that your teenager is using drugs?
An interactive experience at Poe Park is helping Bronx residents young and old know what to look out for when it comes to drug use.
Raina Goodman took a tour through the
RALI Cares trailer on Wednesday with her two kids to learn more about the opioid crisis, and most importantly how children and teens might be hiding their own crisis right in their room.
“Make myself more aware as a parent of what’s going on with these opioids and how to save my kids as well as other people's children,” says Goodman. "Again, as a parent, a concerned parent,I’m going through all of his clothing and really anything I can.”
Dean Welch, a former Washington, D.C. police officer, is now an associate with Code 3 traveling the country teaching parents what to look out for in this makeshift teen room with all the red flags.
“They just figured it was a candy wrapper; I didn’t think it was anything bad until it's too late and their kid overdoses,” says Welch.
Tiny ripped off clear wrappers, remnants of colored bags, tiny plastic tops, shoelaces off of shoes and a pack of some sort that they don't leave home without are all things officials say parents should be looking out for.
Welch says the most important sign to look out for in children and teens is a noticeable shift in behavior, like losing interests in sports or hobbies, school grades dropping and loss of friends.
“We’ve got to watch what our kids are doing, who they're hanging out with and all those kinds of things,” says Welch.
Raina's daughter Asha is 15 years old. She tells
News 12 she's glad she went through the tour, especially at this point in her life.
“A lot of kids are going through tough things and they lean on drugs, but you have to look out for your friends because drugs can kill you,” says Asha.