Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

Juvenile Justice System News

• Chicago Public Radio's excellent series, Inside and Out, recently covered racial disparities in the Illinois juvenile justice system, and explored them in a live community forum. 
• In an editorial, The New York Times urges support for bills in Congress that would create a blue-ribbon commission on fixing the criminal justice system. Among other items on the fix-it list: incarcerating nonviolent offenders. 
• Federal funding for at-risk youth from ... the National Endowment for the Arts? Yes! In partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the NEA 's Shakespeare for a New Generation program will fund six theatre companies to provide educational activities and performances to youth in the juvenile justice system. 

Want to Help Teens in the Justice System Recover from Addiction?

Join William White of Chestnut Health Systems Lighthouse Institute for a free webinar sponsored by Reclaiming Futures on "Adolescent Recovery Networks." Mr. White will present on recovery movements and recovery network models, and discuss ways that adolescent substance abuse treatment systems can develop strong recovery systems.
To participate, log on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:30 am PST / 1:30 pm EST. (Follow the link above to register.) PLEASE NOTE: The presentation will run 90 minutes, and up to an hour will be provided for questions, so make sure you block out enough time!

 
UPDATE: You can listen to a recording of "Adolescent Recovery Networks" or download the presentation slides here.
 
RELATED Post: Be sure to check out our handy reference list of evidence-based models for treating adolescent substance abuse.

Back in January, we offered two sneak peeks at the Obama Administration's then-forthcoming National Drug Control Strategy, developed by the Office of National Drug Control (ONDCP), including a link to an extremely informative webinar about it with deputy director A. Thomas McLellan.  
Now, the ONDCP has put the final touches on its National Drug Control Strategy - you can read the full strategy here or watch a video message from ONDCP director Gil R. Kerlikowske. 
Not up to reading the whole thing just now? You can find the Executive Summary here (it's also available in Spanish), or you can download a brochure with highlights. 
RELATED Post: The National Drug Control Strategy is high-level policy. When you drop down a couple of thousand feet down to where it comes to actually treating adolescent substance abuse, you may want to check out our handy reference list of evidence-based models.
 

[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.

Juvenile Justice Reform News

• One of the two juvenile court judges involved in the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal pleaded guilty on April 29th. (Missed the story? We linked to a story in The New York Times last year about the two judges who apparently accepted money to funnel kids into a private juvenile detention facility.)
• It doesn't really cover juvenile drug courts, but the Organization of American States (OAS), American University, and others have just published an overview of a survey of drug courts in 12 countries, giving an interesting (and positive) international picture of the intervention.
• Helping kids in trouble with the law be successful means helping them be successful in school and on the job. So you might be interested in this paper from The Urban Institute, "Improving Education and Employment for Disadvantaged Young Men: Proven and Promising Strategies."  It reviews the "evidence base on programs and policies such as youth development for adolescents and young teens; programs seeking to improve educational attainment and employment for in-school youth; and programs that try to 'reconnect' those who are out of school and frequently out of work, including public employment programs." Next, it reviews promising and proven strategies for helping affected youth. (Hat tip to @isaac_outcomes.)

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.

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.

Grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance are now available to "establish or enhance residential substance abuse treatment programs in correctional facilities that include aftercare and recovery supportive services." Grants may be used to treat teens in juvenile detention.
Here's the official description:
FY 2010 Second Chance Act Reentry Demonstration Program Targeting Offenders with Co-occurring Substance Abuse and Mental Health Disorders Program funds may be used for treating co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders in prison programs, jails, and juvenile detention facilities, providing recovery support services, reentry planning and programming, and post-release treatment and aftercare programming in the community.
Application deadline is June 3, 2010. 
(Hat tip to the National Reentry Resource Center.)

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.