20 Resources for Juvenile Justice and Adolescent Treatment: a 2010 Roundup

In 2010, we posted tons of useful links for professionals, policymakers, and advocates connected with the juvenile justice system and adolescent substance abuse treatment.
Rather than warehouse them all on the blog, we're wheeling some of them out on display again. Maybe you overlooked some of them last year, or never got a chance to download that nifty tool kit -- now's your chance. Here's 20 of them, listed below in random order:

1. The Partnership at Drugfree.org's Treatment E-Book for parents. (Follow link, go to first bullet.)
2. How to Get Teens to Engage in Treatment - a proven toolkit from NIATx that increases retention by on orienting teens to treatment. (Follow link, scroll to third bullet down.)
3. What works in juvenile justice? Check out this international literature review, compiled for an Australian Member of Parliament. (Follow link and scroll to third bullet.)

4. What information should be shared on juveniles in court and between systems? This tool kit from the Models for Change initiative will help you do the right thing, legally and ethically.
5. How to improve your adolescent substance abuse treatment system -- a provider tool kit, and a system-level toolkit for policymakers, both from NIATx.
6. Looking for a training curriculum for your juvenile court? Look no farther than the revised curriculum from the MacArthur Foundation, put out by the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC) in partnership with the Juvenile Law Center. "Intended for juvenile court judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and probation staff, the curriculum provides in-depth training materials on the most up-to-date adolescent development research and its application to juvenile court practice." (Follow link, scroll to second bullet.)
7. Need information on disproportionate minority contact in your state? The W. Haywood Burns Institute has a great interactive map; includes information on state statutes governing detention, and more. (Follow link, scroll to first bullet.)
8. Proven practices for improving education and employment for disadvantaged young men. If you want to cut recidivism, this is where it's at, right? (Follow link, scroll to third bullet.)
9. Process Improvement 101 - This free 1-hour e-learning course from NIATx is a great model for any agency that wants to do a better of job of reducing no-shows and improving engagement.
10. Six free e-learning courses from SAMHSA for substance abuse treatment professionals from SAMHSA. CEUs are offered.
11. Third-party billing guide from NIATx - to help adolescent substance abuse treatment agencies establish or improve their third-party billing systems for agency stability and growth.
12. Help young people and youth of color get work and stay in school. Two publications from P/PV. 
13. Guides to teen text slang -- Useful for probation officers, treatment counselors, and anyone who needs to GWTP. (That's my own abbreviaion for "Get With the Program...") 
14. I Got Arrested! Though this guide to the juvenile justice system is specific to New York, you may find this comic strip helpful -- or, it may inspire you to create one for your own jurisdiction. 
15. Youth guides to building budgets and logic models. Youth can be some of your most effective advocates. These guides from The Finance Project are designed to help them understand some of the key tools used in planning services. I had someone on our LinkedIn discussion group recommend them, too, so they've been road-tested. You might also want to check out the Youth Manual from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, which is intended for young people serving on state advisory groups (SAG) on juvenile justice -- and it includes tips and strategies that adults can use to help support youth participation.
16. What should recovery-oriented care for youth in the juvenile justice system look like? Check out these resources for ideas. 
17. Positive Youth Justice - a report from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice on how to use the principles of positive youth development to design better interventions for youth in the juvenile justice system that draw on their strengths and assets, and not just on the risks they present. 
18. Moving from Them to Us: Challenges in Reframing Violence Among Youth. This paper -- short and admirably clear -- is probably the most provocative and rewarding theoretical paper I read last year on juvenile justice issues. Focused on addressing youth violence, it talks about complex, thorny issues. For example, it suggests that telling success stories about individual youth might work against our larger goal of reducing youth violence, and it addresses white people's minimization of racism head-on. Highly recommended. 
19. What works when implementing an evidence-based practice, according to research. If you're going to invest in evidence-based practices (and no doubt you've already done so), may as well make sure you're doing it right. 
20. Time to Get Help - a one-stop-shop website from the Partnership at Drugfree.org for parents of teens struggling with alcohol and drugs.

BONUS

21. 19 adolescent substance abuse treatment manuals for download. All are free, and evidence-based.
22. For Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Providers: 5 T.A. "Packages" from CSAT. These mini-guides are available for you to download as PDF files. 

If you used any of the resources above, what did you find most useful? Did I leave anything out?  Leave a comment below! (It may take a day or two to show up, as I'm moderating comments to block spam.)

Can't get enough resources? Check this 2009 post for more helpful information: 8 Great Resources for Improving Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment
 
Photo: Jack Delano, Library of Congress.