NCJ Number
145307
Date Published
1991
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This report describes 12 programs that offer promising, innovative, or unusual treatment approaches for adolescents with both mental health and substance abuse problems.
Abstract
Program information was obtained through telephone interviews and literature. All 12 programs serve these multiproblem adolescents; only one requires formal diagnosis of drug dependency and mental illness. They differ in their services, but all offer some form of group therapy and recognize that recovery is an ongoing process, many emphasize family involvement, and few produce formal outcome data. Recommendations were synthesized from the comments of the administrators, counselors, and clinicians who were interviewed for the study: 1) a long-term, intensive design should be adopted in order to ensure that adolescents' changes become internalized; 2) aftercare should receive specific attention and funding, to counter adolescent relapse upon returning to his or her original environment; 3) HIV/AIDS education should be provided; 4) ethnocultural and economic issues should be addressed; 5) all clients should be assessed for histories of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse; and 6) the whole person should be taken into account. Staff should be trained in family dynamics and should familiarize themselves with the fields not of their expertise, in order to render the most coordinated, comprehensive service possible. 28 endnotes, 42 references