Help families understand the most effective tool we have to keep young people who are already using drugs, safe from harm.

Parenting is a lifelong process of harm reduction! Working out what risks a young child may take (climbing up onto the glass coffee table, eating dirt in the garden!) and being one step ahead is a necessity and an art form. What more there's no one way of doing it. Parents understand that to protect a child they need to balance a child’s need to explore, learn and grow with their need to be protected and kept safe. Sometimes being overprotective (or controlling) can be just as harmful as being neglectful.

In adolescence, harm reduction gets cranked up a notch. The 2 year old you could pick up and move to a safe place is now 15 and wants to go out with friends, unsupervised. In stretching their wings a young person is practicing skills they will need in adulthood. This healthy and necessary process can be terrifying to watch! (Read more....)