Adolescent Substance Abuse: Two Culturally Specific Resources
When it comes to treating adolescent substance abuse, providing culturally-appropriate care is critical -- though easier said than done.
Here's two culturally-specific resources that might prove useful:
Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Careers: "Imagine Who You Could Save" Video Series
The Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network has an amazing number of resources available to help treatment professionals and agencies.
For example, I just found a very interesting set of videos designed to recruit people to work in the field of addictions treatment on the ATTC Network's Facebook page. (For some reason, I had better luck viewing the videos when I used Internet Explorer as my browser, rather than Firefox.)
Adolescent Substance Abuse: Video Advocacy
"Guys like me don't make it."
That's how the arresting introductory video on the Connecticut Turning to Youth and Families (CTYF) website begins. And what the young man means is that no one expected him to make it. But in spite of his own addiction, he found a way through. (July 15, 2009 update: a different video now greets new visitors to the CTYF site. The video pictured above is here.)
Juvenile Justice Reform: A New Strategy for Addressing Disproportionate Minority Contact
Anyone who's serious about juvenile justice reform wants to address disproportionate minority contact (DMC), and several major foundation efforts have been chipping away at the problem for over a decade.
Now, TimeBanks USA hopes to bring the "practice of sending minority youth to confinement to a screeching halt."
Confidentiality for Teens in Drug Treatment
Suppose you provide alcohol and drug treatment to teens.
What do you do if the mother of an adolescent patient is demanding to see her son’s treatment records, but the son doesn't want your program to discuss his treatment with his mother or to share any records with her?
How do you deal with the relapse of a young teen-age patient? Can your program contact the patient's parents? Must you?
Five Resources for Youth Involvement
The Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health has a great list of youth involvement resources that it updates every month. Here's five they posted recently:
Restorative Justice Reduces School Violence and Suspensions
How do you reduce school violence?
It's easy: you get serious about restorative justice.
At least that's the conclusion I draw from an excellent report, "Improving School Climate: Findings from Schools Implementing Restorative Justice." The report, from the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), provides intriguing data from six U.S. schools and four Canadian and British schools showing significant drops in school suspensions and "behavioral incidents."
*Image by spunkinator from Flickr (CC License).
Social Media Webinar - Recording Available Now
Missed last week's webinar Mac Prichard and I did on using social media for juvenile justice? No fear.
You can download the PowerPoint presentation and a resource sheet packed with helpful weblinks from the webinar's sponsor, Coalition of Juvenile Justice, or from Reclaiming Futures, where you can also grab a recording of the webinar itself.
Teaching Young People About the Legal System
Interested in interactive online tools for teaching young people about the legal system? I've got two good ones, thanks to the Changing the Court blog.
Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment - Confidentiality & Consent Resources
Want more info on how to handle confidentiality when it comes to teens getting treatment for substance abuse? Here's two great resources:
