There is a community forum Monday night at 6pm at the Park City Library to help parents who are struggling with how to talk to their kids about drug use and suicide prevention. KPCW will air the forum live.
The forum was organized by Valley Behavioral Health, Summit County Health Department, Park City School District and Park City Municipal. Health professionals will talk about the issues affecting the Park City community after two 13-year-old Treasure Mountain students passed away last week in separate incidents. Police do not know how they died. They are waiting for a medical examiner’s results. But they say they are concerned about the prevalence of social media chatter among Park City youth regarding a new synthetic opioid called “pink”. That drug has already killed at least two other people in Utah.
Scheduled to speak tonight are:
-Dr. Benjamin Thatcher, Chief Medical Officer of Valley Behavioral Health He will talk about the signs and symptoms of substance abuse.
-Cathy Davis is a suicide prevention specialist from the Utah State Office of Education. She will discuss warning signs of at-risk children and teens.
-Al Chacon with Valley Behavioral Health will talk about mental health initiatives.
-There will also be a question-and-answer panel, with Dodi Wilson, the director of Valley Behavioral Health, Rich Bullough the director of Summit County Health Department, Dr. Thatcher, Cathy Davis and Dr. Jennifer Plumb who is with the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Unit at Primary Children´s Hospital. Dr. Plumb’s specializes in preventing opiate overdose death with naloxone rescue kits in the community, adolescent substance use and abuse.
Wilson says the focus of the evening will be on educating and supporting families who have questions about drug use and suicide prevention. They will not address specific questions regarding the investigations into the deaths of the Treasure Mountain Junior High School students. There will be a translator available for the Spanish speaking community.
Again, the forum starts at 6pm tonight, Monday, September 19 at the Park City Library, 1255 Park Avenue, at the Jim Santy Auditorium. If you can’t make it there in person, KPCW will carry it live. You can hear it on the radio, 91.7 in Park City and Summit County, 91.9 or 88.1 FM in Heber City and Wasatch County. You can also stream it live from our website, kpcw.org, or download the KPCW App on your smart phone and listen to it wherever you go.
Missed the live forum? Audio provided below
