Blog: Resources

Juvenile Justice Reform and Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment News

• Remember the Canadian study last year that followed youth for 20 years and found that youth who came into contact with the juvenile justice system were seven times more likely to commit crimes as adults? One reason for that was labeling. Now, here's more research that labeling kids as "juvenile delinquents" contributes to additional crime.  (Hat tip to @cjny.) Nevertheless, MD legislators are working hard to make sure that law enforcement and juvenile justice officials share information about kids with school administrators.
• The New York Times noted in an editorial that the Governor's budget for the coming year practically ignores the recommendations contained in the report of the Governor's task force on juvenile justice. In a separate editorial, the paper encouraged Congress to sponsor a proposed blue ribbon panel on the nation's criminal justice system.

Want to get some expert pointers on how to talk to the media about juvenile justice issues? 
Then check out the presentations from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice's(CJJ) Southern Regional conference. Held January 29-31 in Charleston, SC, the conference focused on working with the media to promote juvenile justice reform and to strengthen the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act's (JJDPA) four core requirements.
On the conference web page, you can find:

• the conference agenda;
• a presentation from Judge Steve Teske of Clayton County, GA, offering pointers on working with the media;
• a presentation on how Jefferson County, AL successfully worked to reduce court referrals from Birmingham schools by a whopping 84% (this collaborative effort also had a media strategy);
• a presentation from Linda O'Neal of the Frameworks Institute on how framing the message correctly is necessary to get members of the public to care about teens in the juvenile justice system; and
• an overview by Tara Andrews, deputy director of CJJ, of key talking points with regard to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).

What is the Accelerating Reform Initiative?

In a pilot project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the NIATx Accelerating Reform Initiative (ARI), 23 organizations in 12 states are working to accelerate their reform efforts.
 
What's the Purpose of Initiative?

The purpose of ARI is to give behavioral health care organizations the tools and peer supports needed to respond to the sweeping changes that parity, health care integration and decreased grant funding may bring. These include:

The Obama Administration's new drug control strategy will be officially unveiled in February. Until then, here's two peeks at what lies ahead on the demand reduction side of the policy:
1. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has begun publishing a newsletter, called the ONDCP Update. (In addition to our link here, you can also find it on the ONDCP Web site at  in "What’s New" and in "Publications".) You can find two articles on the strategy there -- one is a brief overview, and the other signals that there will be a new emphasis on recovery as well as prevention, intervention, and treatment. 
2. NIATx's ACTION Campaign II sponsored a fantastic webinar with Thomas McLellan, the deputy director of the ONDCP. His official topic was the impact of health care reform on addiction treatment, but he also touched on parity regulations and of course the new national drug control strategy.
I recommend that anyone even peripherally interested in addiction treatment follow the link and check it out -- but especially if you're responsible for running a treatment agency or managing a treatment system. (I had some trouble getting the PowerPoint slides to work properly, but there aren't too many, and Mr. McLellan is quite thorough in his audio presentation.) 

How to Improve Your Treatment System

Do you work for a county or state agency that's trying to improve its adolescent (or adult) substance abuse or mental health treatment systems?
Check out this excellent system-level toolkit from NIATx.


How to Improve Your Treatment Agency

Work for a treatment agency? There's also a toolkit for treatment providers on how to make your agency more efficient, effective, and bring in more money.
 
Related Posts:

• Improving Adolescent Treatment - Tools & Resources from NIATx
• 8 Great Resources for Improving Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

 
(Photo by Wonderlane.)

Five Mini-Guides to Improve Your Substance Abuse Treatment Program

Want to improve the quality, effectiveness, or sustainability of your adolescent substance abuse treatment program? T.A. "packages" from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) can help. (They apply to adult treatment programs, as well.) Two of the packages have been out for a while, but three new ones have just come out.
 
Not Just for Grantees

Now, when I first saw the announcement about these packages, I made a few assumptions that turned out to be incorrect:

• You don't have to be a grantee to get the benefit of these packages.

• "Package" -- which I took to mean a combination of services and materials -- actually means "pamphlet" or "mini-guide".  These are short PDF documents you can download and scan very quickly (though don't get me wrong: they're packed with info). 

• You don't have to collect Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) data to use them, though it helps. 

 
The Five Handy "Packages"

In short, every substance abuse provider would do well to review these and choose one to work through. Here's the three new ones:

Concerned about youth who are victims of violence, or who've witnessed it? 
Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers can get news and resources from the Safe Start Center, run by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Places to start:

• “Issue Brief #1: Understanding Children’s Exposure to Violence”
• “Healing the Invisible Wounds: Children’s Exposure to Violence”
• Victimization and Juvenile Offending, from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which also put out Helping Traumatized Children: Tips for Judges
• Judges might also be interested in the Judicial Checklist for Children and Youth Exposed to Violence from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ)

You can also follow the Safe Start Center on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
 

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.

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.