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One of the most difficult things for adolescent substance abuse treatment service systems to do is to support teens in recovery.
Fostering peer support has long been seen as critical in adult recovery, but duplicating that for teens raises difficult-to-solve issues of liability and concern for their safety. 
Nevertheless, there's no question that peer support could be a powerful tool for teens in recovery, and many communities are looking at ways to accomplish it. Furthermore, new technological tools, like this iPhone app for 12 Step participants, may address some common barriers.
And now the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is offering a small number of grants to commmunities wishing to build peer-to-peer recovery support services. (It would be great if one of the grantees focused specifically on adolescents in the justice system.) Deadline is February 10, 2010. 
However, note that the grant application specifies that "peer services must be designed and delivered primarily by individuals in recovery to meet the targeted community’s recovery support needs, as the community defines them." It also draws a sharp distinction between peer recovery and aftercare. 

This report on adolescent substance abuse and mental health issues in the federal legislation governing the juvenile justice system is reprinted, with permission, from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of The Link: Connecting Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, published by the Child Welfare League of America. The final fact sheet, suitable for printing, can be found on the Act-4-JJ website. 

 
The first part, below, describes the justification and the key issues; the second part contains recommendations for strengthening the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.

When Congress considers legislation later this year to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), mental health and substance abuse issues will be a top priority.
 
Available data from single site and multisite studies indicate that 70% or more of youth who are securely detained in a juvenile justice facility may suffer with mental health and related disorders; rates of mental health and substance abuse disorders appear to be somewhat higher for girls than boys; and more than 20% of such youth suffer disorders so severe that their ability to function is significantly impaired (Abram, Teplin, McClelland, & Dulcan, 2003; Skowyra & Cocozza, 2007; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002).
 
Among youth under nonresidential court supervision (e.g., on probation), the rate of diagnosable mental health and substance abuse disorders is approximately 50%.
 
By comparison, in the general youth population, approximately 20% of youth suffer with mental health and substance abuse disorders. In addition, justice system involved youth may experience behavioral/emotional disorders for the first time because of contact with the juvenile justice system.

Your Juvenile Justice System: Share Local Needs with OJJDP

• What training and technical assistance does your system need?  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) wants to know. Complete their online needs assessment for your juvenile justice system, and help them improve their understanding of local needs to build capacity and sustainability among juvenile justice organizations. 

 
Juvenile Justice System and Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment News

• Laurence Steinberg, co-author of Rethinking Juvenile Justice, was just awarded $1 million for his work on adolescent developmental psychology -- work that has made him an expert on juvenile justice. Steinberg is the first winner of the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, believed to be one of the largest prizes given in the social sciences.

Kim Johnson, MBA
DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS OF NIATx, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

What is NIATX?

NIATx helps behavioral health providers improve access to and retention in treatment for all of their clients. It's a process improvement collaborative based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (The acronym stands for The Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment. However, since NIATx has moved into mental health other areas of behavioral health, we now go by the acronym only.)
NIATx began in 2003 as a grant project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. The 39 provider sites involved in the grant applied the NIATx model of process improvement, making dramatic improvements in access to and retention in treatment. Today, we work with more than 1500 providers in all states.

Want help improving adolescent substance abuse treatment in your community? We've published a lot of excellent resources since we launched this blog a year ago. 
(Yes, we're still celebrating this blog's birthday. Missed our earlier celebration? Check out the list of our top 10 most popular stories on juvenile justice and adolescent substance abuse.)
Here's eight more great posts from our archives, aimed at helping you with teen treatment:

The Reclaiming Futures blog turns one year old today!
To celebrate a great first year of sharing news, conversation, and resources related to juvenile justice reform, adolescent substance abuse, and (of course) Reclaiming Futures, I've pulled together a list of our top 10 most popular stories.
Today, I'll post five of them, in reverse order of popularity:
#10. Six Tips for Engaging Families in Juvenile Justice System Reform and Advocacy - Involving families is always a struggle for juvenile justice systems. So in this post, Grace Bauer, Field Organizer for the Campaign for Youth Justice, tells you how you can get it done. 

On October 1, 2009,the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center launched the National Reentry Resource Center—an unprecedented initiative to advance the safe and successful return of individuals from correctional facilities to their communities.
 
What is the CSG Justice Center?

The CSG Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization that serves policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels from all branches of government. It provides practical, nonpartisan advice and consensus-driven strategies--informed by available evidence--to increase public safety and strengthen communities.
 
The National Reentry Resource Center will continue the CSG Justice Center's commitment to collaboration and will draw on the experience and expertise of its many valued partner organizations, as well as its own work in the field. Among CSG's past contributions is the 2005 landmark report of its Reentry Policy Council—the result of work by 100 of the most respected workforce, health, housing, public safety, family, community, and victim experts in the country.

Kids on the run or in crisis now have another way to keep themselves safe: their cell phones. 
Beginning October 15th, a nationwide system, "Txt 4 Help," has been set up by National Safe Place so that teens on the run or in crisis can use text messages to find a safe place to go, or get connected with a national hotline.
America's Promise Alliance has the details: "Youth in crisis can text the word SAFE and their current location to the number 69866, and they will receive an address for the closest Safe Place site and contact number for the local youth shelter."
(Hat tip to Portland Prevention.)