Troubled teens seek aid from 'concerned' senior
Lifeline
Brian Bauerle, Harlan, Iowa, senior, sits at the end of a telephone line trying to talk a teenager out of committing suicide.
By CAROLYN BOWERS
Kansan Staff Writer
A boy is just beginning a bad "trip" after dropping acid. Everyone is out to get him.
A high school girl and her friends have begun sniffing glue "for kicks." Where do they go from there?
Kids with problems like these are being helped by Brian Baurele, Harlan, Iowa, senior, who has incorporated counseling with a human relations class project for semester credit.
Baurele works with Kansas City youth through an agency that advises teens about their problems or refers them to specialized agencies or private physicians.
His interest in counseling teens began last summer in Chicago while participating in a communication group of 50 radicals and 50 suburbanites.
"I was considered a radical because of my longish hair," he said.
While Baurele was with this group, a Chicago hospital psychiatrist asked him to assist in working with young drug addicts, runaways and threatened suicides.
Bareleen said he could "relate" to these teens because he had been around drugs and people with emotional problems.
After the summer, Baurele transferred his interest to the Kansas City organization where suicides, parents, anyone with a
16 KANSAN Nov.21 1969
problem call a switchboard operator. Presently he is busy in Lawrence trying to interest local organizations to support a similar group.
He began his counseling in Kansas City by taking calls on the switchboard and eventually accumulated enought cases of his own, so that he now works mainly with them.
"I actually do nothing," Baurele said, "I merely try to let them know that I know what they're talking about."
He stressed that the cases he works with are not "everyday occurrences.
Drugs, including marijuana, speed and acid are as prevalent in high schools as on college campuses, he said. There is no "drug culture" within high schools as there are in colleges, Baurele said.
"High school students are at the mercy of peddlers who might sell them permanently harmful drugs.
"Older people ignore the drug problem," he added. "Kids can't go to their parents, teachers or ministers with their drug problems. They need to be given the straight facts."
Baurele's experience with drug addicts has enabled him to help those under the influence of drugs.
"When someone is on a bummer of a trip, he needs a person who knows what's going on and knows how to handle the problem," he said.
"Most parents yell and want to take the kid to a hospital right away," he said. "This is the worst
thing you can do—you must communicate with them."
He described the technique of first discussions with the youngster.
"You must get his mind off his bad trip," Baurele said. "We look at beautiful things, we laugh, I tell him not to worry."
Barele also acts as a liaison for young people who have problems with their parents.
He described the case of a high school girl who couldn't communicate with her parents and asked Baurele for help.
"When I came to the house the girl was crying, so I put my arms around her. This really shocked her parents. We just talked and as views came out, parents and daughter found that the differences between them were really slight."
daily pickup & delivery to all
dorms, fraternities and sororities
1029 Phone
New Hampshire 843-3711
Although he helps some college students, Baurele works primarily with high school students.
"Kids are so aware of social problems," he said, "you can't put anything over on them and they question all that's happening."
"I try to present them with an alternate meaning of life that parents may already have, but instead of handing down this philosophy, parents hand down money."
Go On!
(FIND YOURSELF...)
Call 800-325-2594 TOLL FREE
If you'd rather "switch than fight it",come to a 118-year-old college that's NEW!
It was a girls' school . . now we're admitting men too. (Our male-female ratio is better regardless of how you look at it!) Our new curriculum emphasizes individual study and career preparation. We look new! By semester's end, we'll even have a new name.
Our college is right in the middle of the action in College Town U.S.A...Columbia, Missouri. You can even arrange a course of study that includes work at Missouri University and Stephens College. That's three schools in one.
If you're ready for a new outlook . . . call Bill Brown, Director of Admissions collect today . . . 800-325-2594 For Non-Residents of Missouri . . . 314-449-0531 For Missouri Residents...all night calls to 314-442-1903 or write
CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, Columbia, Missouri 65201 For an application and literature.