By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer
Kathleen Berry of Port Richmond sat out in the hallway of Disston Elementary School reading a book until it was time for her to speak to students in the school’s library. She was trying to keep her mind on something other than what she was there to speak about.
Berry, who lost her daughter Karen to a heroin overdose almost 10 years ago, is part of the HEADS-UP Moms Squad. Karen’s bright, smiling, eighth-grade face is one of many photos used in the presentation to let kids know that the consequences of using drugs are devastating and to prevent their faces from being a part of the program in the future.
The program’s acronym stands for Heroin Education And Dangerous Substance Understanding Program.
More than 466,000 throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and Massachusetts have seen the program presented since its inception in 2001.
Slide after slide of young people smiling, high, with a bullet wound in their head, slumped on a street, laid out in a casket, photos of the graves of these lost children, proves a powerful point of the effects of drugs and violence stemming from drug use.
It’s graphic. It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s real life.
Another photo of Karen Berry shows her lying in bed, high as a kite.
"Stop thinking you look so cool when you’re high," Berry told the children. "You’re almost dead and when you come out of it, it’s like a badge of honor."
She held up a T-shirt emblazoned with her daughter’s likeness.
"This does not take the place of my daughter," Berry said with tears in her eyes. "Every day is like the very first day I lost her. Don’t do this to yourselves. Don’t do this to your families."
The woman who has dedicated her life to making sure that other families don’t have to suffer the way hers has told the children that they have people that care for them the way she cared for her Karen.
"I would have died for Karen to make sure she was healthy and happy. Once she became addicted to drugs it was like she was a different person. She was sparkly, bubbly, and very loyal. Everyone borrowed her clothes. When she OD’d for the last time, the girl who was her best friend, who borrowed her clothes, dumped her outside of the hospital like she was trash. She was no different than any of you," she told them.
There were a few tears shed during the presentation. After it was over, a few girls cried much harder as they held on to caring adults, including Officer Mary Ellen Ferry.
That’s not an uncommon response, according to Ferry, who stated that students are often afraid for family members. It lets the kids know they’re not the only ones.
At high school presentations, some students come forward who are afraid for themselves.
In fact, one girl at George Washington High School came up to the presenters in her senior year and told them that for the first three years she saw the program, she didn’t think she needed them, Ferry said.
As Berry sees it, they’re all scared but they’re all curious, too.
"They watch their older brothers and sisters and it doesn’t sink in that could be them," she said.
According to Officer Ferry, for every 911 phone call for a shooting, there are three calls for overdoses.
The HEADS UP program falls under the auspices of the Philadelphia Police Department, which presents the program, along with volunteers from the recovering community, as well as family members who have lost loved ones to drugs and violence associated with drugs.
In addition to sharing personal stories, it covers information about the drugs themselves, what they look like, the chemicals they contain, and what to do to help a parent or a friend addicted to drugs or alcohol.
"We believe it should be the next national program, geared for grades sixth on up," Ferry said.
Program coordinators revise the presentation each summer, so when they return to schools they may have visited the previous year, it is still fresh and interesting to the students.
Several of the school’s seventh-graders said that they felt bad for the people they saw in the presentation. They also believe the program will stop and make their classmates think.
"Because when Mrs. Berry spoke, it’s a real person who really went through it," said Rebekah Shivers, 13.
Jessica Fricker thought it was really brave of Berry to speak to her class.
"It upset me that so many people were dying over drug abuse," she said.
Christian Rivera, 13, said he hopes more people will watch the program.
"I hope they’ll stop doing drugs and if they never started, to never do it," he said. ••
For information about scheduling a school or group for a presentation, call 215-686-1120 or 215-686-1121. You can also find more information online at http://www.ppdonline.org/prev/prev_headsup.php
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com