Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

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:

I just got back from the 2010 Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) in Baltimore. I, along with other guest bloggers, will be passing on what was shared in the coming weeks. To start off, here's something Dr. Michael Dennis reminded me of while I was at the conference: Chestnut Health Systems has posted a ton of evidence-based, tested clinical protocols for treating adolescent substance abuse, all available for free download. 
Most treatment providers are aware of the Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) manuals:

• MET/CBT-5
• MET/CBT-7
• Family Support Network (FSN)
• Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach (ACRA)
• Multi-Dimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) for Cannabis Users

>>Download them here.
Fewer are aware of the "Adolescent Treatment Models" research funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that followed on the heels of the CYT research. The basic idea was to see whether home-grown programs (vs. models created external to a specific agency) were more effective than "treatment as usual."

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.
 

• Growth in Corrections Spending 1987-2007 Dwarfed Spending on Higher Ed (see image at right) - Curious about where your state stands? Follow the link and check the graph.  It would be interesting to see the same data comparing spending on the juvenile justice system with middle- and high-school spending.  (Hat tip to Jim Carlton.) 
• Gay Teens Are Punished More Heavily in School and in Juvenile Court - From The New York Times: A national study of 15,000 middle school and high school teens published in Pediatrics found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are more likely to be expelled from school than their straight peers, and more likely to be stopped, arrested, and adjudicated.  And "it's not because they're misbehaving more," says the study's lead author, Kathryn Himmelstein. (Hat tip to Dan Merrigan.)

This just in: the final agenda/program for the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) 2010 conference next week is out. 

• What presentations are you most excited about attending?
• If you can't be there, which ones do you most wish you could be there for?  What would be most useful for you in your work? 

• From Teen Carjacker to Poetry Professor - R. Dwayne Betts was imprisoned for nine years at age 16 for participating in a carjacking. Now 30 -- and a free man -- he's published a memoir, is working on a nonfiction book on the effects of incarceration, and is a professor of poetry at the University of Maryland. He's also a spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ). Follow the link for a fascinating interview with him conducted by a blogger at The New Yorker magazine, and see this related post for information about how poetry can be therapeutic to teens in the juvenile justice system.

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment - Related News

• 12 Overarching Principles for Working with People with Co-Occurring Disorders - Hat tip to Paul Savery for this 2006 document from the Co-Occurring  Center for Excellent (COCE) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Incidentally, the COCE plans to launch a new website soon with updated resources. I'll keep you posted. 
• NIH Approves Planning Process to Create a Federal Institute on Addictions and Substance Abuse - In September, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) advisory panel recommended that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institutes on Alcoholism and Aclohol Abuse (NIAAA) be merged, along with other NIH addiction research efforts, into a new addictions institute. The proposal just cleared another hurdle: the NIH director approved a planning process for the reorganization. Nothing will happen quickly, though, as any reorgnization would have to be approved by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and then by Congress.

[The following is reposted with permission of the author and its original publisher, Phoenix House. While not specifically about youth, its conclusions apply to older teens.
Do you run a vocational program for youth in treatment and/or in the justice system? Have thoughts about the role of employment for youth in recovery?  Let us know - leave a comment or drop me an email. --Ed.]
 
I recently came across “Help Wanted: One Second-Chance Job,” by Jim Arkedis, which appeared in the Washington Post, November 12, 2010. 
In the article, Jim tells the story of his mentee, Tim Cofield. Tim is 55 years old, bipolar-schizophrenic, battling substance abuse, rotating in and out of jail, and unable to acquire what Jim deems the most important stepping stone in Tim’s recovery: a job.

• Helping Teens in Recovery Starts with a Simple Phone Call. The Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) Foundation in Seattle is piloting a mentor-by-phone program that now supports 50 teens in recovery after completing substance abuse treatment. The pilot program, "The Recover2gether Project," offers weekly phone calls to teens and two other services. It's funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 
• Also For Teens in Recovery: "Laughter Yoga." The idea is that laughter -- even fake laughter -- changes your breathing and mood in positive ways. Follow the link to watch teens in a sober high school in Oklahoma trying it out on video.   (Hat tip to the Association of Recovery Schools.)

Do teens in your juvenile justice system have a lot of misconceptions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction?  Would they be interested in learning the answers to questions about substance use, abuse, and addiction frequently asked by other teens?
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) held a Drug Facts Web Chat last week, on November 9, in which NIDA scientists answered from teens across the country, such as: