Health professionals suggested practices to ensure the safety of teens to parents in a panel at Evanston Township High School on Tuesday.

The 10-person panel, which included representatives from a range of nearby teen resources, including Metropolitan Family Services, North Shore University Health System and the Family Institute at Northwestern, offered advice on drug abuse and safe social networking to more than 40 parents at ETHS.

IF IT’S ONLINE, IT’S NOT PRIVATE

Paula Frohman, director of technology at ETHS, addressed social networking websites like Facebook and how parents can help their children deal with cyber-bullying.

Parents should become Facebook friends with their children, she said. Parents should also sit down with their children and explain what information they shouldn’t share online, like addresses and phone numbers.

“Teenagers assume if it’s online, it’s private,” she said.

On a positive note, however, parents should encourage their children to share artwork and writing. It helps them make healthy connections, she said.

Parents would do well to Google their children to see what kind of information is available online, said David Chan of the ETHS Technology Department.

KNOW OTHER PARENTS

Social workers from PEER Services, a substance abuse prevention and treatment center, recommended ways to ensure students are staying drug free.

Parents need to make sure that drug abuse is not going on in their homes, the social workers said.

This may be challenging to parents, however; ETHS is such a big school that parents do not often know each other, said Megan DeCarlo, substance abuse prevention program coordinator.

“Parents feel disconnected because they don’t always know the parents of their children’s friends,” she said.

PEER Services offers a directory of parents committed to keeping drugs out of their homes. When a child goes to a friend’s house, the parent may use this directory to call the friend’s parent and check that drug abuse is not occurring.

TIP THE SCHOOL

Parents and students should tip ETHS off when they see students abusing drugs or otherwise exhibiting delinquent behavior, ETHS Safety Director Terrence Doby said. If possible, tips should include names or the school will have trouble identifying abusers.

“Everyone has information, but nobody has anyone’s name,” Doby said. “We have like 3,000 suspects.”

The school’s tip hotline only gets about two tips a year, he said. ETHS will soon implement a way for students and parents to submit tips to the safety department online or through text messages, Doby said.[email protected]