Nowhere is the proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” more relevant than on our Island where everyone knows everyone and there’s a strong sense of community that makes you feel that we are all looking out for one another.

From the time our children begin preschool and develop relationships, we begin to look out for (and care about) our children’s friends as we would our own. We get to know the parents of our children’s friends and develop alliances that are very important as the kids get older and begin to spend more time away from us and with their friends’ families. There is a wonderful sense of security in knowing the other parents and developing trust in them to watch out for our kids and make responsible decisions for them as we do for theirs in turn.

Unfortunately as our kids mature and move on to the high school things change quickly. They develop relationships with kids from all over the Island. Then not only do we not know their friends, but more importantly their friends’ parents. It becomes clear that there are disparities between what some parents think is acceptable in terms of overseeing their teen’s activities, and more importantly, their position on underage drinking and even in some cases drug use. This can leave parents feeling isolated and alone and unsure as to how to rebuild a network of parents that they can trust to make good decisions for their teens when in their care.

The Dukes County Health Council Youth Task Force is extending a hand to help bridge this gap. The council has created what is called a Safe Homes Pledge Program. This program is being offered to parents of children K-12 in a new online, user-friendly application. Parents will have the ability to access the database 24 hours a day to get names, addresses and contact information of other parents who pledge to create a safe, chaperoned, drug and alcohol-free environment where their children can hang out. Few ninth to 12th graders want their parents to talk to one another, but this tool takes that decision out of their hands and puts it back in the hands of the parents where it belongs.

If you are one of those parents who feel it is okay to allow teens to gather unsupervised or that it is okay for them to drink in your home, you may find the concept of creating a parent network futile and outdated. But before you brush the concept off, the council encourages you to try to take a longer view about the potential impacts on your own teen and others.

If you do not condone drinking but leave your teen at home alone unsupervised for hours at a time or overnight, it is important to know that (with the help of technology) within 15 minutes your home could be targeted as the place to drink for the night, and you could be putting your own teen in the very awkward situation of having to deal with the consequences of this decision. And once drinking begins, teens can get hurt, damage property and (as we know) in some tragic cases leave your home and kill themselves or others. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a database of parents who would be willing to have your teen stay with them, do drive-bys at your home or be available to your teen if they were needed?

If you do feel it’s okay for teens to have a few drinks as long as they are safe in your home, please understand that it is not safe. You may have their keys, but chances are you will be asleep when they are ready to leave and teens can be very resourceful. Even if a teen doesn’t get into an accident, by creating a safe place for them to continuously drink you are allowing them to be exposed to dangerous levels of alcohol that we now know can severely interfere with normal brain development at a critical time.

Finally, with the new social host liability law, there are substantial fines and potential civil and criminal charges that parents could face if a teen in their care is found drinking on their property, even if they don’t get into an accident.

Things won’t change for our teens until parent attitudes change in relation to alcohol and its role in their young lives. Unlike in the 1960s and 1970s, we now have a large body of research to confirm that the younger a child begins drinking, the more dramatic the negative impact can be on their brain development and cognitive abilities in addition to increasing the chances that they could become an alcoholic later in life.

Clearly, eliminating only a few venues won’t stop teens who are determined to drink. But it will help reduce the potential access to alcohol the majority of teens might have who might otherwise be ambivalent about drinking and only doing so due to peer pressure. It might also draw the activity more into the light.

As the new school year begins, it is a good time for all parents to reassess their position on underage drinking. Do the right thing by signing the Safe Home Pledge for the sake of all the kids your teen will come to call friends.

Go online to mvyouthtaskforce.org, select the Safe Home Pledge option at the bottom of the page and begin the process.

Jean Kelleher is a West Tisbury parent and member of the Youth Task Force.