Meeting discusses glue-sniffing

Press, 1 November 1985, Page 4

Meeting discusses glue-sniffing

Thirty-five people' attended a meeting last evening to discuss the problem of glue-sniffing in Christchurch and decided to hold two separate meetings next week. The vicar of St John’s Anglican Church, Latimer Square, the Rev. Peter Coughlan, said that about eight parents of gluesniffers were at the meeting and the rest were people from helping agencies, dropin centres, and social workers, both statutory and voluntary, he said. Because of the small number at the meeting it was decided to hold a fur-

ther meeting next week, he said. “I don’t think we got as many as we wanted to Mr Coughlan said he had had about 30 calls from concerned parents since a report outlining his concern was printed in “The Press” last week. Many parents who telephoned had probably not felt free to come, he said, and so the meeting next Thursday, which would be held at St John’s Church, Latimer Square, at 7.30 p.m. would be for parents of glue-sniffers only. At the same time a meeting of those who worked

with glue-sniffers would be held at Te Roopa Awhina, 192 Madras Street, said Mr Coughlan. This meeting would discuss what the workers needed to be able to work adequately with gluesniffers. One point that came out strongly at the meeting was that although quite a few worked in this area their work was hampered by a lack of resources, said Mr Coughlan. “A lot of people are working with nothing. A large number of people are working where there is no funding whatsoever.”

Another problem was that there was nowhere parents could take their children if they came home and said they “wanted out” of the street scene, said Mr Coughlan. Parents were told to telephone to make an appointment by which time their child had disappeared again, he said. An issue that parents felt strongly about was that social workers should make more effort to get in touch with the family. “One woman said, ‘lt would be nice if youth workers would let us know if our daughter was alive.

We still care and we still wake up at night and cry because we don’t know where she is.’ ” Mr Coughlan said it was agreed at the meeting that glue sniffing was a symptom of a much deeper problem in society. “Kids are not being taught how to deal with some of the emotional problems they are going to have to face, particularly unemplyment and the anger in society sometimes from their own parents who are sometimes unable to afford the things -they (the children) need.”