Blog: Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

Want to Help Teens in the Justice System Recover from Addiction?

Join William White of Chestnut Health Systems Lighthouse Institute for a free webinar sponsored by Reclaiming Futures on "Adolescent Recovery Networks." Mr. White will present on recovery movements and recovery network models, and discuss ways that adolescent substance abuse treatment systems can develop strong recovery systems.
To participate, log on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:30 am PST / 1:30 pm EST. (Follow the link above to register.) PLEASE NOTE: The presentation will run 90 minutes, and up to an hour will be provided for questions, so make sure you block out enough time!

 
UPDATE: You can listen to a recording of "Adolescent Recovery Networks" or download the presentation slides here.
 
RELATED Post: Be sure to check out our handy reference list of evidence-based models for treating adolescent substance abuse.

[The following post, on the rewards and challenges of teaching teens in recovery from alcohol and drug abuse, is reposted with permission of the author, Scott Aalund, and its original publisher, Phoenix House. Mr. Aalund is pictured below, in the classroom at Phoenix Academy (click on the photo for a larger image). --Ed.]

 
On my first visit to Phoenix Academy twelve years ago, I remember the school’s secretary laughing after I asked what kind of private school it was. I wasn’t familiar with the program and, with its pleasant entrance and unusually peaceful atmosphere, it didn’t look or sound anything like the large public schools where I’d taught in the past.
 
We started playing a guessing game, until she finally explained that the school served students who were recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. It wasn’t a private school, she told me, but they were fully accredited and the class sizes were small—a maximum 17-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio. Wow, I thought, this would be a challenge.

Early on in my recovery process, I would never have considered myself a “preventionist." I thought young people who were drinking and drugging had to hit “bottom” before they could get healthy again.
 
That idea stayed with me for quite some time, until I got to participate in prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts that didn’t look like the ones I had encountered in school and in my community when I was growing up: I got to witness hundreds of at-risk youth talking openly about their drug and alcohol use through a peer support model in a public high school.
 
At another school, I saw parents gathering together to discuss setting healthy boundaries with their teenagers during a family education night. And I learned about the data on what worked, and some of the evidence-based models proven to provide solutions for living healthier lives and preventing young people from becoming addicted.
 
Now, after spending a few years of working and volunteering in this field, I would very much consider myself a preventionist, treamentist, and recoveryist (although still not much of a speller). I wish this wasn’t true, but one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to solutions from drugs and alcohol.
 

This week, we've got a bonanza of resources, conference presentations, and toolkits related to the juvenile justice system, adolescent substance abuse treatment, and working with troubled youth generally. 
Presentations from Juvenile Justice Conferences You Missed

Still suffering heartburn because you weren't able to make it to that fantastic juvenile justice conference this year? No worries. You can find many of the presentations online. For example:

• Presentations from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice 2010 onference. (Hat tip to Mark Fulop.)
• The 2010 Blueprints conference can help update you on what really works in preventing youth violence.
• Even if you're not a grantee of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), you can find interesting material posted from a recent orientation OJJDP held for new grantees: for example, there's a presentation on how to evaluate your program, another that covers "tools to improve services and program performance," a review of the findings from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), and of course, an overview of OJJDP grant programs.

Juvenile Justice System Funding News

• The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has launched a Grants 101 web page to assist applicants.
• Also, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has announced a Second Chance Act grant for state, local, and tribal reentry courts. The target population includes youth released from juvenile detention facilities. Application deadline is June 3, 2010. (Hat tip to the National Reentry Resource Center.)
• The Employment and Training Administration announced the availability of approximately $20 million for two grants to prepare young adult (ages 18 to 24) offenders and high school dropouts in high-poverty, high-crime communities for employment. Only national and regional intermediaries with experience conducting multi-site projects and experience serving young adult offenders will be eligible. The Department expects to award two grants of $10 million each, covering a six-month planning period and two full years of operation. Grantees will be required to competitively select local sub-grantees to operate the program in a minimum of five high-poverty, high-crime communities across at least two States.  Application deadline: May 10th.  

Interested in juvenile justice and adolescent substance abuse treatment?
Then you don't want to miss the nation's only conference devoted exclusively to adolescent substance abuse treatment -- the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE). It will be held in Baltimore this year, December 14- 16, 2010. You can learn more at the new conference web site, which you'll want to bookmark: www.jmate.org/jmate2010. Registration will open on June 1, 2010. A call for abstracts will be open from April 1–June 4, 2010. [May 25, 2010 UPDATE: According to the JMATE web site, the deadline to submit proposal abstracts for presentations has been extended to July 1, 2010. - Ed.]
The 2010 JMATE offers a unique opportunity for practice, research, and recovery communities to exchange ideas and data, thereby moving the field of adolescent substance abuse treatment toward effective, evidence-based, and promising practices. As a premiere meeting, JMATE provides high-caliber content and speakers.

Do you provide substance abuse or mental health treatment to adolescents or adults? You can improve the quality of care you provide -- and your bottom line -- by using the NIATx model of process improvement.
In that model, successful change efforts begin with a walk-through.  Just what is a "walk-through?" It's a way for staff in your organization to experience the services they provide just as their clients or customers do.
Our new e-learning course, Process Improvement 101, gives an overview of the NIATx model and the tools users need to prepare for a walk-through in their organizations. You can complete this free course in less than an hour, or view one segment at a time. 

Every September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) celebrates National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month).
 
Recovery Month serves to educate the public on how substance abuse contributes to the national health crisis, that addiction is a treatable disease, and that recovery is possible. Although Recovery Month is officially observed in September, we continue to raise awareness about the hope of treatment and recovery throughout the year.

The NIATx ACTION Campaign II: Financial Strength in a Changing World, offers free process improvement tools for behavioral health care providers -- like adolescent substance abuse treatment agencies -- along with an easy way to get connected with NIATx.  
The Campaign features twice-monthly webinars tailored for beginners who are new to NIATx process improvement, or "advanced" webinars for those who have participated in a NIATx project in the past.  The Campaign web site also highlights promising practices that we encourage people to try in their own agencies. Join the Campaign here -- it's free! 
This month, our promising practices focus on tapping into referral sources and increasing collections from insurance companies. The webinar below is one of the associated events. 
[UPDATE:  Just follow the link here to access the archived recording and PowerPoints for "Increasing Collections from Insurance Companies" (advertised below). --Ed.]