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In the last couple of decades, we've seen an explosion of research that tells us what works in adolescent substance abuse treatment and in helping kids caught in the juvenile justice system turn their lives around. As a result, foundations and lawmakers have raised their expectations: quite rightly, they want to fund "what works."
Which is why it's maddening to see "Scared Straight" held up as a model for juvenile justice on national television in "Beyond 'Scared Straight,'" a multi-episode series on A&E that premieres on Thursday, January 13, 2011.
 
The original "Scared Straight" program, in which a group of adult prison inmates attempted to terrify a group of teen offenders into "going straight," was the focus of a television special in 1978. Since then, the authors of "'Scared Straight' and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency (Review)," a 2002 meta-analysis of relevant research on nine such programs, found that "not only does it fail to deter crime, but it actually leads to more offending behavior."
 
That's right: "Scared Straight" increases the chance that youth will reoffend, compared to doing nothing. This is retro-programming that went out with other ill-advised approaches years ago. We need to move forward on this issue – not backwards. 

• 9 Ways to Support Someone with Depression
  Tips to share with parents, caregivers, and youth. 
• Submissions Wanted for Journal of Juvenile Justice
  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) continues to seek manuscripts for its inaugural issues of the Journal of Juvenile Justice, due out later this year.

As of the mid-2000s, the research on the effectiveness of juvenile drug courts was unclear. Now, that's starting to change. In coming weeks, I'll post about new research from John Roman at the Urban Institute about what works and how juvenile drug courts should adjust their practices to be more effective.
 
Juvenile Drug Courts - How Do They Compare to Outpatient Treatment?

Today, I want to share with you a new quasi-experimental study I saw mentioned at JMATE 2010 that compares 1,120 youth in juvenile drug courts in multiple jurisdictions with 1,120 youth not in juvenile drug court, but who particiated in adolescent outpatient treatment. The goal was to see how the two groups differed in terms of services and in their treatment outcomes.
Bottom line? Juvenile drug courts appeared to do a better job (compared to treatment alone) of helping youth reduce symptoms of their emotional problems and cut their substance use, as measured six months post-intake. (This doesn't mean, of course, that every teen who needs drug or alcohol treatment should be in juvenile drug court--!) In general, youth in juvenile drug courts received -- unsurprisingly -- more family services, more wrap-around support, more urine tests, and more supervision.

We're sponsoring a free one-hour webinar, “Investing in Reclaiming Futures,” on January 20, 2011 at 10:30 am PST / 1:30 pm EST. It's designed specifically for public agencies, policymakers, and foundations wanting to learn more about the Reclaiming Futures model and how the model has been adopted as a cost-effective juvenile justice reform initiative. 
The webinar will:

1. review the need for system improvement for young people involved with juvenile justice and substance abuse;
2. describe the Reclaiming Futures model;
3. describe a statewide framework for Reclaiming Futures, and
4. discuss the role of public policy makers and foundations in adopting Reclaiming Futures as a framework at the state level. 

• Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior Among Serious Adolescent Offenders - a new bulletin from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) discussing findings from the landmark Pathways to Desistance research. One of the few things that works to reduce recidivism in this population? Family-focused substance abuse treatment.
• What the heck is "parity," anyway? - the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) gives a quick overview of one of the key recent legislative shifts affecting adolescent substance abuse treatment. (Hat tip to SAMHSA.)

On Monday, December 13, 2010, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), along with many other partners, sponsored 38 young people from around the country to be part of “The Young People’s Networking Dialogue on Recovery (YPNDR).” All of the young recovery advocates volunteered their time to travel to Baltimore and have a very important dialogue.
I have been around many thousands of young people in recovery in various places over the past 9 years, but never before did they have a platform like this. At times during that meeting in Baltimore, I couldn’t help but step back and realize that this conversation was different … something special was going on.
 
Quite literally there was a million-dollar question (perhaps a billion-dollar question) on the table: What is needed to help more young people enter and sustain long-term recovery?

Nine million of America's teens and young adults are struggling with drugs and alcohol¹, yet unlike most other adolescent health issues or diseases, parents have not found a concise path to resources and support for teen drug and alcohol addiction. A new science-based resource called Time To Get Help from The Partnership at Drugfree.org was just released in beta form to begin helping meet these needs.
Resources within Time To Get Help include:

• Learn: Intervention and Treatment e-books for download
• Make a Plan: worksheets and checklists
• Helping Hand Questions & Answers: contributions fromexperts in the field
• Words of Hope: a forum where people can post short Twitter-like messages
• Share Your Story and Journals: to tell stories, track experiences and progress

The Treatment Research Institute has just unveiled its Parents’ Translational Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This first-of-its-kind Center represents a significant investment by NIDA in translational research directed toward parents and other caregivers contending with the spectrum of drug and alcohol issues of children they’re raising.
The unique new Center will fund original research, with the ultimate goal being that the findings can be translated and disseminated in the form of tools that help adults navigate the substance use and abuse that all too often present during the adolescent years -- sometimes with serious consequences. The Center’s projects may also impact parents who have adolescents involved with the juvenile justice system.  
 
The Center’s three research projects focus on different “need states” of parents:

Three more communities will be implementing the Reclaiming Futures model, thanks to $4.1  million in funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). That brings the number of Reclaiming Futures communities to 29 in 17 states.
Each of the grantees will be implementing the model over four years in a juvenile drug court, with the aim of reducing substance abuse among youth in the juvenile justice system:

• Hardin County, OH - Hardin Partnership to Aid Community Teens (Hardin PACT). 
• Snohomish County, WA - Re-Enter, Re-Engage, Re-Claim (R3).
• Travis County, TX - Travis County Juvenile Probation Department.

Congratulations! We look forward to working with them.
>>Read the complete news release, with statements from SAMHSA, OJJDP, RWJF.