Blog: Resources

How do you help youth be successful who are returning from long-term placements, including lockup? Here's a number of resources -- in multiple media -- that you might find useful for improving how your community handles juvenile reentry.
1. Making the Most of Second Chances - Conference Materials
You may have been unable to attend "Making the Most of Second Chances," a national conference on reentry sponsored by the Council of State Governments' Justice Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (I found out about it via the always-helpful National Reentry Resource Center) held in Washington, D.C., in February, but here's the good news: much of it was caught on video.
By reviewing a list of the conference presentations, I found a couple that were focused on juveniles (you'll find video and PowerPoints):

 
Ever wonder how to get the media to pay attention to the issue of kids in jail?  
 
We have the answer for you.  In April, our media guru, EricSolomon, will be our expert teacher to give us the bottom line on working with the media.
 
Please join us for these one-hour trainings and feel free to invite a friend.  The call in number is 866-524-0621, code 7831935097.
 
Basic Media Training I – April 8, 2011, 6:00 pm EST / 5:00 CST / 3:00 PST
Do you get nervous when contacting or talking to reporters? If you need assistance with talking to the media, finding the appropriate reporters to contact, building relationships, tips or what to do and not do during interviews, then this training is for you. You will leave feeling more comfortable and have a better understanding of how to get your message out.
 
Basic Media Training II – April 13, 2011, 6:00 pm EST / 5:00 CST / 3:00 PST
This training will walk you through the beginning steps necessary to promote your event or issue. You will learn how to develop a press release, media advisory, and talking points to use with the media. You will be surprised how easy it is to create these items. Most importantly, you will understand what reporters want to know and not give them something that they will ignore.
 
 

As you make your resolutions for 2011, be sure to add "Join the ACTION Campaign webinars" to your list.
The NIATx ACTION Campaign offers two free webinars per month. In the next six months, most of our webinars will focus on helping substance abuse treatment agencies of all sizes learn how to create or improve their billing systems. We’ll be working to bust some of the myths that keep agencies from working with third-party payers.
In the ACTION webinars, experts and peers will share their experiences that show that you don't need:

• a contract with an insurance provider to submit a bill for services
• a large billing department; or 
• to purchase an expensive electronic billing system.

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.)

Anyone concerned about sharing information about juveniles in the justice system -- and if you're a probation officer, evaluator, policy maker, or program developer, you should be -- will want to get hold of this new tool kit from the Models for Change initiative.
Authored by the Child Welfare League of America and the Juvenile Law Center and underwritten by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the tool kit articulates the "principles that govern information and data sharing including legal, constitutional and ethical concerns; and the use of aggregate data to best inform practice."
But what kind of information-sharing are we talking about? All kinds: you'll find the kit is covers information-sharing for three different purposes:

• Growth in Corrections Spending 1987-2007 Dwarfed Spending on Higher Ed (see image at right) - Curious about where your state stands? Follow the link and check the graph.  It would be interesting to see the same data comparing spending on the juvenile justice system with middle- and high-school spending.  (Hat tip to Jim Carlton.) 
• Gay Teens Are Punished More Heavily in School and in Juvenile Court - From The New York Times: A national study of 15,000 middle school and high school teens published in Pediatrics found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are more likely to be expelled from school than their straight peers, and more likely to be stopped, arrested, and adjudicated.  And "it's not because they're misbehaving more," says the study's lead author, Kathryn Himmelstein. (Hat tip to Dan Merrigan.)

James Bell on Juvenile Justice Reform

• In the brief video below, James Bell, director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, sounds off on youth incarceration:

I am still, at 51, propelled by outrage. I am just p***d off that the greatest country in the world -- that the only way they can figure out to socially control teenagers is to put them in cages... But we don't do that to White people. That is the bottom line.
It's worth watching all 10 minutes of this video, because Bell is passionate, entertaining, and motivating. My only caveat (which I'm sure Mr. Bell would agree with) has to do with his urgent call to people of color to put pressure on vested interests and the White community to reform the justice system. It can't just be on people of color to change the system -- allies from all communities are needed so that the effort is not pigeonholed by skeptics. (Hat tip to the W. Haywood Burns Institute on Facebook.) 

Adolescent Substance Abuse and Related Treatment News

• Is marijuana a "gateway" to other drug use? Not so much, according to new research, and "over-criminalizing" its use can contribute to young adults' use of other illicit drugs. According to the study, race and ethnicity are the best predictors of whether someone will use illicit drugs besides marijuana: non-Hispanic whites are more likely to use them than are (in order) Hispanics or African Americans. Furthermore, although marijuana use in one's teen years might lead to use of other drugs, youth apparently "age out" of that when they reach 21. Unemployment is a factor too, which suggests that, as one researcher concluded, "over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities." (Hat tip to Robert Ackley.) Related reading: Jeff Butts on "The Enduring Gateway Myth."
• Teen use of alcohol and drugs can be significantly reduced with brief, school-based interventions by mental health therapists or even by teachers given minimal training, according to a new study from the U.K. Researchers evaluated their use of alcohol and drugs at six months post-intervention, so it's not clear if the effects would need to be repeated on a regular basis.

Adapted from a post by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network:

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) is pleased to announce the availability of five six new e-learning courses for substance abuse treatment professionals:

• Prescription Medication (Part 1): Misuse, Abuse, and Dependence;
• Prescription Medication (Part 2): Addressing Addiction;
• Organizational Development: Governance and the Board of Directors;
• Organizational Development: Marketing as Collaboration; 
• Organizational Development: Using Financial Information as a Nonfinancial CEO; and
• Acamprosate: A New Medication for Alcohol Use Disorders

These courses provide an opportunity for professional growth as well as one continuing education unit per module for maintaining certification or licensure. Learn more.

These courses are a great development. Looking forward to SAMHSA adding more courses -- especially some that are specific to adolescent substance abuse treatment!