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Rising juvenile crime rates, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and decaying moral values have a lot of parents wondering where to begin in pulling their teenagers back from the brink of self-destruction.

Help is available for Covington County families with at-risk teenagers by way of the Impact program. The program is designed to help hurting teens and their families and will begin its new cycle of an eight-week course October 10, 2006.

The non-profit organization is a franchise of Birmingham's Impact Family Counseling Service brought to Andalusia by Judge Trippy McGuire in 1996.

"We were looking for an alternative to sending kids to boot camp," McGuire said.

"An old law school buddy of mine who is a judge in Birmingham told me that the best thing they had going up there was the Impact Family Counseling. They had been pleased with the results they had seen so we started looking into bringing the program to Andalusia."

McGuire was surprised to have more than 100 people attend a community meeting that had been set up to discuss the project with the director of the Birmingham organization.

"We have just reached our tenth anniversary with Impact, and it has been a great help to me as a judge," he said.

"For me to put juveniles into the criminal justice system tries to force a change in their behavior from the outside. With Impact, the emphasis is placed on teaching the teens self-discipline and self-motivation so that they begin to want to make a change themselves."

Impact meetings are held once a week at the First Baptist Church in Andalusia to confront students and families with the reality of their behaviors and the consequences of their decisions.

"What we really want to do is keep troubled kids from becoming a part of the judicial system," said Helen Hinson, executive director of the program. "We have volunteers that meet with kids and their families to discuss the importance of communication in the family, work on trust issues, conflict resolution and setting limits and boundaries.

We also discuss addictions and work with Sav-a-Life to present a program on sexuality," she said.

" We try to give families the tools to deal with problems before they get out of hand and require a judge's intervention," she said.

The program accepts teenagers from ages 12 to 17 and receives referrals from Covington County Youth Services, juvenile court, school systems or private referral.

Hinson says she sees the greatest concentration of teen problems in single parent households with the most common conflicts being between mothers and sons.

"We see a lot of disrespect between parents and children flowing in both directions," Hinson said. "Many parents don't realize that they have to teach their kids to trust them and many relationships are destroyed because of the consequences of broken promises."

Impact is funded through donations from the cities of Opp and Andalusia, the Covington County Commission, and the United Fund. Private donations are also accepted at the office at 409 South Three Notch St.

"We know we can't completely change a teenager in just eight weeks, but we are heartened by the success we've seen in changing mindsets and improving family dynamics," she said. "We also are happy to provide mentoring and follow-up meetings after the course is completed," Hinson said.