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Does your community coalition fight teen substance abuse?
 
You might consider applying for a Drug Free Communities grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). And if you're currently a grantee, now's the time to apply for continuation funding.
Three live workshops are being held, but one was held yesterday and the second will be held tomorrow. The last one will be held on February 12th in National Harbor, MD. You can register here.
You don't have to attend to apply, but it would probably be a good idea not to miss one. Fortunately, a recorded version of the workshop, plus PowerPoint presentation, will be available online by the end of January.  
If you have questions related to the content of the RFA, please call the hotline at 240-276-1270 or email your questions. If you have financial or grants management questions, please call Barbara Orlando at 240-276-1422 or email her.
 
The deadline for applying is Friday, March 19, 2010.

The American Bar Association (ABA) Criminal Justice Section's on-going effort to catalog the far-reaching effects of juvenile adjudications or convictions continues apace, with a large body of research already completed, and more data being collected every day. 
 
What Are "Collateral Consequences?

"Collateral consequences" are adverse results stemming from an arrest, prosecution, or conviction, but are not part of the sentence.
 
For example, although a juvenile who was adjudicated delinquent at 14 may have completed her sentence, she may be unable to gain admission to a professional school later on in life, or have difficulty finding public housing. Often, collateral consequences can impact a juvenile's family members; depending on the child's offense, for example, an entire family may be evicted from public housing.

Editor's Picks: Stories of the Week

 
New Federal Drug Control Strategy

• If you manage an adolescent substance abuse treatment agency or system, you won't want to miss this recorded webinar. The Obama Administration’s ambitious national drug control strategy, due out until February, could double or triple the number of people getting treatment by integrating addiction treatment into doctor’s offices. There will also be a new focus on treating offenders and an overall emphasis on recovery in addition to treatment. Check it out - it's completely worth your time.
   

From the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP):
 
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is seeking qualified consultants to serve as peer reviewers for its fiscal year (FY) 2010 discretionary grant applications.
 
OJJDP is committed to ensuring a fair and open process for awarding grants. Peer reviews, which provide an independent assessment of applications, play an important advisory role to that end.
 
OJJDP invites researchers and practitioners with expertise in juvenile justice to apply to serve as peer reviewers. Knowledge and expertise in the following areas would be particularly helpful and should be noted and described when applying:

Recently, I was at an event where a recovery house advocate told a story about how local residents in a suburban Connecticut community banded together to prevent a recovery house from being sited in their neighborhood. 
This story is all too common for recovery supporters and advocates across the country – it makes me think of cell phone towers. Why? Because everyone wants cell service at their house, but nobody wants a cell tower in their neighborhood.
 
I get it: towers are ugly and may not be what you want to see out of your window every day. But sober and safe housing for young people is exactly the opposite.
 
I got to a recovery house just after my 18th birthday, and I believe to this day that it saved my life.

How can you reform your juvenile court to cut down on juvenile crime?

1. Impose mild sanctions that are immediate and reliable.
2. Work with your community to improve the public legitimacy of your juvenile court. Recent research has shown that people are more likely to obey the law if they think the system is fair. 

SAVE THE DATE: the 2010 Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) is scheduled for December 14-16, 2010, in Baltimore, MD. [UPDATE April 5, 2010: The JMATE website is now live. UPDATE December 13, 2010 - You can see the full agenda here; and a list of presentations given by Reclaiming Futures folks. - Ed.]
If you've never attended this (almost) annual conference, this is a big deal. So far as I know, it's the only national conference devoted solely to adolescent substance abuse treatment and recovery. If you're a professional in one of those fields, it's not to be missed. And I can say from personal experience that it's a great conference to attend for juvenile justice policy makers as well -- in fact, anyone who wants to learn more about the "state of the art" in adolescent treatment.
Reclaiming Futures is one of the sponsors, along with:

• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
• Society for Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Effectiveness (SASATE)
• Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network
• Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)

That's quite a line-up. A website will be put up where you can get more information. To be alerted when it's live, send an email to JMATE-info@jbsinternational.com.
[UPDATE: You can learn more about the conference here and you can follow it on Facebook. - Ed.]

Moving Toward a Better Response to Disproportionality

For over two decades, there has been a great deal of concern about disproportionate representation of minority children in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Research has confirmed that this disproportionality extends in many jurisdictions across the two systems and across race and ethnicity.
 
Despite the broad interest in addressing disproportionality within these two systems, we have not seen a lot of effort by these two systems to learn from each other’s efforts and to work across service systems to confront it. These two systems are, however, particularly appropriate places to start this type of cross-system effort. After all, studies inform us that children and youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are often the “same kids,” just seen at a different point in time. This research informs us that children and youth who are maltreated are more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system than those who have not been abused or neglected. So how can we get the systems to work together on this critically important issue?

Juvenile Justice Reform News

• As of January 1st, Connecticut has begun handling 16-year-old youth who break the law as juveniles, not as adults. Similarly, Illinois has also changed its policies and will now handle 17-year-olds who commit misdemeanors as juveniles.
• About 1 in 3 youth reported being sexually victimized by their peers or by staff in 13 juvenile detention centers nationwide, according to a Justice Department survey. The survey is the first of its kind and was given to about 9,000 youth. On average, it found that about 12% of youth in detention centers report being sexually victimized. You can read more about it (and find a link to the report) on Youth Today, with even more information here about what action might be taken federally. Some jurisdictions dispute the federal findings, in one case because the numbers are so different from in-house surveys.