Article: Notifying parents when alcohol is involved

The Washington Post has an interesting article on parental notification for alcohol related issues on campus.

An increasing number of schools are moving to a “notify every time there’s any type of alcohol violation” policy on the heels of more serious alcohol-related tragedies. Not surprisingly, the move isn’t fully supported by everyone, but some states have even moved to requiring it.

I found it interesting that regardless of how schools handle the process, when notification does happen, it works best with some coaching:

The effects of parental notification have not been widely studied, but the concept seems to work best when universities coach parents on how to react to the news, said Thomas Workman of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, who chairs a committee focused on alcohol education. Officials need to be mindful of family dynamics and cultural differences, he said.

“We can’t assume a parent knows what to do and that they would do the right thing,” he said. But if approached in the right way, parents can be the perfect partners for an intervention, he said.

Typically if we are going to require parental notification, we ask the student to contact his or her parents and the parents must contact us to let us know they’ve had that conversation within a certain amount of time. I’m wondering whether there are ways we can better support the parents in that process as well. (And I’m sure there are some legal nuances all the way through that…)

How does your school relate to parents when there are alcohol-related incidents?