Blog

[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.
 

Juvenile Drug Court News & a Webinar

• Got a juvenile drug court? This May, drug courts around the country will honor National Drug Court Month by holding events with the theme "All Rise: Putting Drug Court Within Reach of Every Person in Need.” Want help or ideas on how your jurisdiction can celebrate? Download the National Drug Court Month Field Kit from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals -- there's even a national "commencement" day on Thursday, May 20, 2010. (Hat tip to Christa Myers, project director of Reclaiming Futures Hocking County, OH.)
• While this webinar isn't specifically for juvenile drug court practitioners, it has obvious application: on May 4, 2010, the Council of State Governments' Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project is offering a webinar sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, titled,  "Working with Data for Mental Health Court Practitioners." It'll be held from 2pm - 3pm EST. Follow the link to register. For inquiries about this webinar or other webinars in the series, please email Elizabeth Meyer or call her at (646) 383-5718.

[The following post is about the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program. It originally appeared in different form on the CLTL Blog, Changing Lives, Changing Minds, and is reposted here with the permission of the author and the publisher. You can learn more about Bristol County, Massachusetts’ experience with the program here. -Ed.]
 
Recently, I had the chance to interview Michael Habib, who facilitates the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program for teens in Fall River, MA. Because I volunteer with young offenders in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I wanted his advice on a few questions:

• What tips do you have for other juvenile reading programs?
• How do you get kids to open up?
• What do you do when they don’t do their assigned work?

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.

 
When children you love and care for end up involved with the juvenile justice system, their journey could lead to months or years that slowly extract mental and physical energy from you. That’s why it’s paramount that you surround yourself with natural supports and a safe haven.
 
As parents and caregivers, our natural instinct is to nurture. An inexperienced child – perhaps even our own flesh and blood -- tugs at our hearts. Regardless of the title you hold, or how the child is related to you, you will need to carve out quality time for yourself. I’m sure some of you will laugh at the absurdity of this idea, but in the long run, our young people’s self-made problems from their past can and will come back to haunt our present.

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.  

What is the Wisconsin Adolescent Project?

Back in December, I wrote about how NIATx was working with agencies in Wisconsin to help remove barriers to implementing Teen Intervene, an evidence-based program aimed at teens who are experimenting with alcohol and drugs, but who are not dependent.
That project, called the "Wisconsin Adolescent Project," came to an end on March 31, 2010. Organized by Susan Endres, Adolescent Treatment Coordinator at Wisconsin Department of Health Services, this was a partnership between the state of Wisconsin, Dr. Ken Winters of University of Minnesota, creator of the evidence-based practice Teen Intervene, (TI), NIATx, and three agencies that serve adolescents: University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics’ Adolescent Alcohol/Drug Assessment Intervention Program (UWHC-AADAIP); Coulee Youth Centers of La Crosse, and Options, Inc. of Appleton, which operates several sites in the surrounding area.

The importance of witnessed collections (for urine drug testing) cannot be over-emphasized. Urine collections that are not witnessed are of little or no abstinence assessment value because of the propensity of juvenile substance abusers not to provide a legitimate sample (denial, efforts to hide relapse/use).
The definition of “witnessed collections” is direct, full-frontal, line-of-sight observation -- basically, staring at a participant‘s genitals while he or she produces a urine sample.
Difficult? Yes! Uncomfortable? No doubt! Necessary? Absolutely critical!