Help me, don't leave me hanging!

There is a call in radio show that I have forced myself to listen to for a couple of weeks now. It is so frustrating. The show is designed for people 25 and younger who are dealing with life's issues. The person taking the calls is not a counselor, simply a youth worker/advocate. I totally understand that he is a parent and has worked with students for many years. What I don't understand, however, is how he is actually helping people.

Every time I have listened, I become more and more frustrated. These troubled people pour out their hearts and really get no closer to closure. For instance, last night a guy calls in and says that his parents smoke pot all the time. They have been busted before, but continue to smoke. The young man admitted that he had tried it himself, but did not like it and had not done it again. He said that he and his girlfriend were trying to "get right" and he didn't know what to do about his family. The host asked him what he meant by getting right. The young man didn't have a clear understanding of what it meant to "get right" with the Lord. I was expecting the host to reassure the guy that if he had asked for forgiveness that is all that he had to do. Besides that, his advice was that the boy has to move out. He must prove to his parents that he means business and leave. He then said, thanks for your call (hang up).

What??? Oh if life were that easy. The poor boy could have been 15 or 16 and have no where else to go. What if he has no job? How is he supposed to just leave? Offer him some help. Connect him with someone locally that can help him. Don't just cut the poor kid off with no resources! This is just one example of the frustrations that I face with this show. In my 9 years of youth work one thing that I have learned is that kids have to be given resources and often you have to hold their hand while taking advantage of the resources. They don't have a clue how to seek out help on their own. That is why they come to adults. They are told their whole lives to go to an adult they trust if they don't know how to handle something. That is exactly what these kids are doing and it isn't getting them any further than they were before.

My only hope is that there is more going on off air. I pray there is more going on!!! It makes me so angry each night when I listen to this. I want to call those kids back and offer them real help.