Improving Adolescent Treatment - Tools & Resources from NIATx

Making your agency more effective at serving teens who need substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment (or both) is hard work. And even though in the past I’ve posted some of the resources here  that we have to help you, such as our free e-learning course on process improvement or our archived webinar on how to increase collections from insurance companies, you might not realize how many other things are available on the recently-redesigned NIATx web site.

• Have a question about implementing the NIATx model to improve access and retention in treatment? Head over to the NIATx Support Forum and browse the instant help FAQ for ideas and resources to address some common problems. Or, post a question to the forum and get help from over 4,000 provider participants, 100 coaches, and university staff.

• To help you find the resources you’re looking for more easily, we’ve reorganized the content into drop-down menus that appear under seven main headings at the top of every page. Key content includes our toolkit for providers, our “system-level toolkit” for managers responsible for treatment delivery in a jurisdiction; promising practices; upcoming events; and success stories. You can even use our interactive map to find a treatment agency near you that’s used the NIATx model.
• We know you’ll want to share this great content, so we’ve made that easy – at the bottom left of every page you'll see icons that will let you email the page, share it on your favorite social networking site, or print it out.
• And don’t miss My NIATx -- your personal home page and dashboard for the NIATx Network. (Almost all the content on our site is available to you without a username or password. But there are a couple of tools that do require a login, and My NIATx is one.) On My NIATx, you can save the resources important to you in one convenient location or check out the latest news and blog posts, as well as see a digest of the most recent activity on the Support Forum.

The NIATx Network is only as strong as you make it, so take some time to browse the Support Forum and share your expertise. And be sure to let us know what you think of our new, improved site!
 

Kim Johnson, MBA, Deputy Director For Operations of NIATx, University Of Wisconsin-Madison, is a research center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on systems improvement in behavioral health. She is also director of the ACTION (Adopting Changes to Improve Outcomes Now) Campaign, a national campaign to improve access to and retention in treatment. Prior to her move to Wisconsin, Kim served for seven years as the director of the Office of Substance Abuse in Maine. During her tenure as Maine's SSA she focused on improving availability to treatment through cross-system efforts, including developing a model treatment program for criminal justice clients, improved referral systems for child welfare clients and increased access to medication-assisted treatment through work with Medicaid, primary care, and the public health system. Kim has also been an executive director of a treatment agency, managed intervention and prevention programs and been a child and family therapist. She has a master's degree in counselor education and an MBA.