SAFE Event - Dr. Akiva Pearlman, PhD

[Music] and I think it's really important for us to walk out of A Moment Like This Feeling empowered as parents not disempowered feeling like we have the ability to make a difference which we absolutely do when you start breaking down the statistics between children who've had the opportunity to be raised by parents who are willing to have some really tough conversations which what tonight is ultimately about especially for the parents who brought their children like I hope it's really my wish that the drive home is going to be somewhat uncomfortable cuz hopefully we'll introduce you to some questions that we should start discussing with one another and this moving forward having these conversations I assure you are not comfortable at all um but they're necessary they're necessary to have because we know this statistically that if we do have these conversations and if a child does H does have live with the belief that could turn to a parent and ask them some challenging questions questions that the child themselves know my parents do not want to answer they don't want to hear these questions from me if children have that belief that I can ask the question they're much more likely to remain in a safe State and if children do not then they're like literally it's a blade of grass in the wind we're not quite sure what their fate is going to be we had in years past where by and large there was a trajectory to death in drug use you started somewhere you often started with alcohol then you made your way to pot possibly cocaine some psychedelics you move your way into the painkiller world and find your way to heroin often that could take 5 to 10 years and it's a slow progression into that place with many many warning signs when you dealing with fentanyl fentanyl is something that someone could be using on an entrylevel use when it comes to drugs and all of a sudden they get a bad batch and there's nothing we could do about it literally all you could hope and pray for is that someone catches them and provides the right level of care for that individual and that's a terrifying thought it's a debilitating thought trust as parents and yes we need to pray we need to pray for their well-being but we need to go well beyond that which is how do we Empower them to start having some very challenging dialogue with us and with them [Music]