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Did you know that 30 million previously uninsured people are now eligible for coverage, including mental health and addiction treatment?
If you provide mental health and substance abuse services, you need strong business operations to meet this challenge and position your organization for growth. 
There is good news–and free training–for you! The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is funding online learning called BHBusiness: Mastering Essential Business Operations.
Apply by December 16, 2013, for online courses grow your organization, improve efficiency, and deliver value, focused on five core competencies:

• Strategic business planning
• Third-party billing and compliance
• Eligibility and enrollment
• Third-party contract negotiation
• Meaningful use of healthcare technology

The Application deadline is December 16, 2013. Note: There are a limited number of slots remaining; apply as soon as possible to ensure acceptance into the program.

 
Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, has a unique perspective on what teens in prison need to be successful.
Locked up in federal prison at age 34 for a drug crime committed in her early 20s, Kerman spent a year living in close quarters with many women, including 18- and 19-year-old girls.
What were the three things she thought they needed to be successful?

1. Positive attention. She found the teens in particular were incredibly responsive to positive attention, creating significant opportunities for change -- opportunities that were often missed.
2. Continued connection to their families and their own children.
3. Alcohol and drug treatment and mental health services.

But you should really hear it from her own lips. Fortunately, when she was in town earlier this week, Piper graciously agreed to be interviewed (see above).
What impact did the experience have on her?  Among other things, it has turned her into an eloquent advocate for juvenile justice reform, and addressing disproportionate minority contact in the adult and juvenile justice systems. Now that's a great outcome. 

Judge John Schwartz founded the first Drug Court of New York in Rochester in 1995—at a time when the idea was highly controversial. On Friday, Oct. 25, Judge Schwartz presided over his last graduation as he prepares for well-deserved retirement.
Judge John Schwartz started his career in 1983 as a Rochester City Court Judge and has accomplished a tremendous amount for the New York Drug Courts. The Honorable Judge Schwartz has received several prestigious awards for his contributions to the Courts and his positive impact on the community throughout his career.
His last graduation class was monumentally successful; 85 newly clean and sober participants graduated—the largest group in the court’s 16-year history!
“It’s our largest graduating class ever and it’s been a great day,” said Judge Schwartz. “We’ve had a lot of success stories at this court and I’m very proud of them.”
It was the 46th graduation ceremony at the Hall of Justice in the Rochester City Court, and more than 200 people from across New York attended.
One particular special guest, Beth Coombs—a graduate in Judge Schwartz’s first class—traveled from California to speak on behalf of his groundbreaking work in the Drug Court field. “He put his reputation on the line so we could have a new way of life,” said Coombs, who currently works for a nonprofit association.
Another speaker on behalf of Judge Schwartz was West Huddleston, CEO of National Association of Drug Court Professionals, who praised Schwartz’s achievements within the state of New York and the Drug Court.
“[He] is an icon in the Drug Court profession who helped pave the way for others. As a visionary, he understood the value, the need and the potential of Drug Courts, and he put in the hard work needed to make the dream of Drug Courts a reality,” said Huddleston. “The domino effect Judge Schwartz has had on the Rochester community, the state of New York and the Drug Court profession is immeasurable.”

Beyond Scared Straight is, unfortunately, still on the air despite the research that shows it's ineffective and damaging to kids. In fact, Scared Straight programs actually INCREASE the likelihood that teens will reoffend. Why we're trusting the future of our teens to a television network whose other shows include Storage Wars and Duck Dynasty is beyond me. 
We've written quite a bit on (Beyond) Scared Straight in the past:

• Beyond "Scared Straight" -- Moving to Programs that Actually Work
• Scared Straight: Don't Believe the Hype
• "Scared Straight" Programs Are All Talk
• Less Scared Straight, More Talk Therapy
• "Beyond 'Scared Straight'" Program Incoherent According to Conflict Management Expert
• On "Scared Straight" -- From a Personal Experience
• What J. Edgar Hoover and Scared Straight Get Wrong About Juvenile Justice

Below you'll find a selection of the latest grants, jobs, webinars and events posted to our Opportunity Board. Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!
Jobs

• Policy Analyst, Juvenile Justice | New York
• Case Manager II/III/IV - Alcohol or Other Drugs | Texas
• Family Services Therapist - Multiple Available | Washington

Events

• Juvenile Justice & Child Welfare Process and Placement for Juvenile Sex Trafficking Survivors: Nov. 7
• 8th Global Youth Justice Training: Dec. 3-5
• Zero to Three 28th National Training Institute: Dec. 11-14

Webinars

• Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Toolkits for Jails and Juvenile Facilities: Nov. 29

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Justice Reform Pays, in Dollars and Sense (Ledger-Enquirer)
  One eye-popping number: The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice says the state can save more than $90,000 for every child -- every child -- that doesn't have to be placed in a juvenile detention center. So said political, law enforcement and judicial officials in a town-hall panel discussion at the Augusta Library Headquarters.
• New Coalition to Focus on Juvenile Justice in Jacksonville (Jacksonville.com)
  More than two dozen Northeast Florida elected officials, churches, advocacy groups and policy organizations are joining forces to put a stop to the criminalization of first-time juvenile offenders accused of committing misdemeanors.
• Georgia Closing Juvenile Prison With Nation’s Highest Rate of Sexual Victimization (JJIE.org)
  A Georgia youth prison, recently found by a federal study to have the highest rate in the nation of sexual victimization of incarcerated youth, will close at the end of the year, the state Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) announced Monday.
• What Role Does Race Play in Juvenile Justice? Youth Forum Tackles Subject (Middletown-CT.Patch.com)
  The Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, Middletown Mayor Dan Drew and young people will explore solutions to racial disparity to promote equality for Connecticut young people in the system.

Isn’t it fun when policy is trending our way? Indeed, after reading State Trends Legislative Victories from 2011-2013 Removing Youth From the Adult Criminal Justice System released by the Campaign for Youth Justice I just want to celebrate.
State Trends identifies twenty-three states that enacted forty pieces of legislation to reduce the prosecution of youth in adult criminal courts and end the placement of youth in adult jails and prisons. They identify four important trends:

• Trend 1: Eleven states (Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon and Ohio) have passed laws limiting states’ authority to house youth in adult jails and prisons.
• Trend 2: Four states (Connecticut, Illinois, Mississippi, and Massachusetts) have expanded their juvenile court jurisdiction so that older youth who previously would be automatically tried as adults are not prosecuted in adult criminal court.
• Trend 3: Twelve states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Ohio, Maryland and Nevada) have changed their transfer laws making it more likely that youth will stay in the juvenile justice system.
• Trend 4: Eight states (California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington) have changed their mandatory minimum sentencing laws to take into account the developmental differences between youth and adults, allow for post-sentence review for youth facing juvenile life without parole or other sentencing reform for youth sentenced as adults.

The Office of National Drug Policy Control promotes a “smart on crime” approach that emphasizes prevention and access to treatment over incarceration in order to break the cycle of substance abuse, crime and re-arrest—especially among youth.
Programs like Reclaiming Futures Multnomah Embrace are furthering the goals of the smart on crime approach by engaging the right people to improve services for youth in the justice system and positively impact the community.
 
In 2006, the program partnered up with Write Around Portland and local mentoring agencies to publish “When You Were Fifteen,” a collection of stories from adults and youth about what it was like to be 15—the average age of youth in the local juvenile justice system. This book continues to raise awareness of the need for caring adult mentors in the lives of youth caught in the cycle of drugs, alcohol and crime.
 
More recently, Multnomah Embrace hosted a spring meet and greet fair to connect young people with services and activities available in their community.  The meet and greet also offered a panel of four teens from Lines for Life—a 24-hour teen-to-teen crisis, counseling and referral line. The teen panel members discussed the importance of healthy activities and shared personal stories of how these activities positively impacted their lives.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• In ‘Vernon’s World,’ a Young Photographer Documents the Life of a Homeless Teenager (JJIE.org)
  Unaccustomed to the cold, hard floor in his spot next to the door of the public bathrooms in Trenton, Missouri, Sam Wilson, 22, slept badly. In a stall next to him, Vernon Foster, 18, didn’t have the same trouble. By the time Foster woke, Wilson had been in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness for hours, apologizing to the morning walkers as they filtered through the bathroom, surprised to see two young boys asleep on the floor.
• Mandatory Sentencing 17 year-olds in Adult Court - Is There a Better Alternative for Wisconsin's Youth and Taxpayers? (MacIver Institute)
  In the United States, there is a wide consensus that children differ from adults. The very fact that each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. have institutions designed to render judgment on cases and administer justice outside of the adult criminal court speaks to this critical distinction.
• OP-ED: Girls in the System Need More of Our Support (JJIE.org)
  "I just returned from the Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders Conference in Portland, Maine, where Piper Kerman, author of the memoir 'Orange Is the New Black,' -- the inspiration for the wildly successful Netflix series of the same name -- gave the keynote address to the 400 or so attendees all with some connection to the offender population."
• Florida's Juvenile Justice Department Seeking Reform Suggestions (WJHG.com)
  Gulf County residents sat quietly as Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters talked about a major change, focusing more on prevention programs. "These problems that allow people to become violent and so disregard authority and commit crimes and know that they're committing crimes, these things don't happen in a day," said Secretary Wansley Walters of the Department of Juvenile Justice.