Published in the Town and Country Newspaper on March 21.
Project Live UP’s March meeting featured a speaker from the Upper Perkiomen High School’s Student Assistance Program (SAP) and a Project Live member and community resident who frankly discussed his problems with alcohol.
Shane Thrush, a UPHS special education teacher, gave the audience a look into how the high school deals with troubled students and the resources available to them.
Thrush heads a team composed of guidance counselors, administrators, regular education teachers and other members of the professional staff. Creative Health Services also plays a role on the SAP team, guiding the members on appropriate responses to various issues.
Students may get on SAP’s radar in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons: chronic lateness to school, symptoms of possible drug abuse, falling grades, etc.
“Anyone can be referred,” Thrush said, displaying the referral form available to the high school staff. “It goes to our team and we’ll do a little more investigating, try to gather information from everyone that would work with [the student] and then, based on that, we reach out to the family and say, ‘Hey, these are some things we are noticing.’”
The referral form makes clear that SAP is not a treatment program but rather a conduit to appropriate services and actions.
However, it is not mandatory that families accept SAP’s findings.
“If the parents say, ‘I don’t want services’, there is nothing I can do,” Thrush pointed out, even if the student involved wants the help. “A student can say ‘no’, a parent can say ‘no’. The second they do, it stops.”
Thrush brought statistics from 2017-2018 showing that 104 cases were reported in the high school and 74 students and their families “accessed services”.
Over the past few years, the district and high school have taken steps to meet the rising need for services. A fourth counselor was hired to deal strictly with students in crisis and behavioral issues, freeing the other counselors for more traditional duties like college applications and course selection.
Several group programs were started to deal with topics such as smoking cessation, coping strategies, dating relationships and grief.
“These change, based on the need,” Thrush related.
Next year, Thrush and his team are looking forward to a new program, LinkCrew, that will assign participating juniors and seniors to incoming freshmen.
“They’ll meet periodically. They’ll invite them to activities, social activities, social events. It’s more of a morale thing. It’s good for the whole school and our student assistance program.”
More information about SAP, including referral forms, can be found on the UPHS website at www.upsd.org/high-school/guidance-resources/sap-program.
Following Thrush’s presentation, Dave Lintvedt spoke candidly of his decades-long struggle with alcohol issues and his recovery. He has been sober since 1989.
“But that doesn’t mean the journey is in any way over,” Lintvedt pointed out.
Lintvedt, a victim of abuse as a very young child, echoed the thoughts of several of the speakers who have addressed Project Live UP audiences: using alcohol and drugs made him feel accepted socially.
“I fit in with people. At least, I thought I did. I was having fun. I wasn’t shy. I thought I had found what I was looking for.”
During his experience, Lintvedt had his car shot at by drug dealers, narrowly avoided arrests, suffered through the deaths of friends and was briefly homeless among other “fun” experiences.
Lintvedt started his final turn toward sobriety on a spring day in 1989 in New York City when he was walking back to his place of work at the time, the World Trade Center. Despite the fact that he was trying to quit drinking, he impulsively purchased beer at a bodega. But he drank only half a can. He threw the rest away.
In the several months that followed, Lindvedt described himself as being a “dry drunk”, craving a drink but fighting the urge. Then he became a regular attendee at AA meetings.
“You’re here because you need to be here,” a fellow attendee told him. “Why not stay here?”
After a few career changes, Lintvedt ended up in the Upper Perkiomen Valley and went to meetings at Penn Foundation.
“I’ve been to meetings from Bar Harbor, Maine down to Orlando, Florida and out west. Anytime I walk into a meeting, I get what I need, and that’s made the big difference for me.”
As a member of Project Live UP, Lintvedt has been a tireless volunteer and spearheaded the rebuilding of the skate park in East Greenville last spring.
He has also penned a book of essays about his journey, “On Anvils of Experience”, which is available on Amazon. The author is donating half the proceeds from the book to Project Live UP and presented the first check after his presentation on Monday night.
On Saturday, several people gathered at the Project Live UP office in The Center to construct squares for a digitized “Reflections Quilt” that will be displayed at community events.
Executive Director Cathy Fried recently addressed the Women’s Community Service at New Goshenhoppen United Church of Christ and summed up Project Live UP’s mission in the community.
The Recovery is Possible Group for people in recovery meets every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in The Center on Jefferson St., across from the current middle school. The Family Recovery Support group meets at the same time and location on Thursday nights.
The next general meeting is on April 15.
Contact Project Live UP at projectliveup@gmail.com; 724-617-2703; projectliveup.org; or through Facebook.
The Q-View 