Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

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.

Interested in juvenile justice and adolescent substance abuse treatment?
Then you don't want to miss the nation's only conference devoted exclusively to adolescent substance abuse treatment -- the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE). It will be held in Baltimore this year, December 14- 16, 2010. You can learn more at the new conference web site, which you'll want to bookmark: www.jmate.org/jmate2010. Registration will open on June 1, 2010. A call for abstracts will be open from April 1–June 4, 2010. [May 25, 2010 UPDATE: According to the JMATE web site, the deadline to submit proposal abstracts for presentations has been extended to July 1, 2010. - Ed.]
The 2010 JMATE offers a unique opportunity for practice, research, and recovery communities to exchange ideas and data, thereby moving the field of adolescent substance abuse treatment toward effective, evidence-based, and promising practices. As a premiere meeting, JMATE provides high-caliber content and speakers.

In mid-March, “CASPAR,” a treatment-improving system developed and evaluated at the Treatment Research Institute (TRI), was designated an evidence-based practice on SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP). 
 
This Computer-Assisted System for Patient Assessment and Referral (CASPAR) uses technology to promote validated assessment of substance abuse patients along with corresponding referral to community-based, free or low-cost services addressing various client needs. By “needs” I mean those needs that can’t be met on-site, such as medical and dental services, job training, getting a driver’s license reinstated and most any other type of service needed.
 
Although we pitch the system on the TRI website for use with adult clients, it can also be used to find referrals for adolescents with substance use/abuse problems. Criminal justice case managers, those providing brief interventions in physician offices, etc. can also use CASPAR.

Do you provide substance abuse or mental health treatment to adolescents or adults? You can improve the quality of care you provide -- and your bottom line -- by using the NIATx model of process improvement.
In that model, successful change efforts begin with a walk-through.  Just what is a "walk-through?" It's a way for staff in your organization to experience the services they provide just as their clients or customers do.
Our new e-learning course, Process Improvement 101, gives an overview of the NIATx model and the tools users need to prepare for a walk-through in their organizations. You can complete this free course in less than an hour, or view one segment at a time. 

Click on the video above to hear the story of one teen struggling with substance abuse in juvenile court at the Reclaiming Futures site in Montgomery County (Dayton), OH, and how Reclaiming Futures made a difference in her life.
Watch it now and share it with your colleagues! It's moving, informative, and extremely well-done.
We're grateful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for making the video. Congratulations to Judge Anthony Capizzi and Reclaiming Futures project director Charlotte McGuire and their entire team for all of their great work. 

Every September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) celebrates National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month).
 
Recovery Month serves to educate the public on how substance abuse contributes to the national health crisis, that addiction is a treatable disease, and that recovery is possible. Although Recovery Month is officially observed in September, we continue to raise awareness about the hope of treatment and recovery throughout the year.

Juvenile Justice System - Grants

Here's links to several funding opportunities and a specific fundor. Not all are juvenile-specific. The pool of plausible applicants for several of these will be quite narrow. 

• First, a national mentoring grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which is intended to provide support and enhancement for community-level mentoring programs for "high-risk populations that are underserved due to location, shortage of mentors, special physical or mental challenges of the targeted population," and so on. OJJDP also issued a similar grant solicitation on a regional, multi-state level. Application deadline (for both): April 22, 2010.
• Alternatively, you can start a new family drug court or enhance an existing one with OJJDP grant funds. Though not focused on teens in the justice system, these funds could provide needed support for substance-using adults in your community's dependency court. Application deadline: April 27, 2010.
• You could also bid on providing technical assistance to the State Advisory Groups (SAGs) in juvenile justice. Applications are due April 29, 2010.
• If you want to do research in the juvenile justice system, Youth Today lists a few more funding opportunities.
• Finally, you might be able to get useful project support from the Public Welfare Foundation, which likes to focus on systemic change. Juvenile justice is a focus area for the foundation. 

The NIATx ACTION Campaign II: Financial Strength in a Changing World, offers free process improvement tools for behavioral health care providers -- like adolescent substance abuse treatment agencies -- along with an easy way to get connected with NIATx.  
The Campaign features twice-monthly webinars tailored for beginners who are new to NIATx process improvement, or "advanced" webinars for those who have participated in a NIATx project in the past.  The Campaign web site also highlights promising practices that we encourage people to try in their own agencies. Join the Campaign here -- it's free! 
This month, our promising practices focus on tapping into referral sources and increasing collections from insurance companies. The webinar below is one of the associated events. 
[UPDATE:  Just follow the link here to access the archived recording and PowerPoints for "Increasing Collections from Insurance Companies" (advertised below). --Ed.]

Here's some potentially huge news for adolescent substance abuse treatment providers and juvenile courts across the country. It could mean that sharing information between treatment providers and juvenile courts gets easier -- but it could also seriously jeopardize young people's privacy and the likelihood that they'll get treatment.

Juvenile Justice Reform News

• Last year, the results of a a 20-year study in Canada showed that contact with the juvenile justice system makes boys more likely to commit crimes as adults. But according to a Youth Today article [subscription required], other researchers are coming up with similar conclusions. The question is, as the author of the article asks, what will juvenile justice system policy makers do about it?