Achieving Better Outcomes For Adult Probation. Of rehabilitation and treatment programs. And county–funded programs for probationers will. Treatment Program Dallas County, Texas, established a residential substance abuse treatment program for probationers to relieve prison overcrowding.

View the print-friendly version: Visit the Abstract There is little information on the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment services commonly available to adolescents. In this study, RAND researchers found that one such program helped young probationers reduce substance abuse and improve their psychological functioning. These findings suggest that more research is needed on the relative effectiveness of the types of programs typically available to youths in the community and the specialized services typically found to be effective in rigorous experimental studies of adolescent treatment. In recent years, the number of adolescents referred to substance abuse treatment programs has risen sharply. This increase can be attributed almost exclusively to a steady increase in treatment referrals from the criminal justice system, which now accounts for more than half of all adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions.

Dallas County, Texas, established a residential substance abuse treatment program for probationers to relieve prison overcrowding.

Unfortunately, there is little information on the effectiveness of those substance abuse treatment services commonly available to adolescent probationers. There is a growing literature demonstrating that specialized, manual-guided treatment interventions for adolescents can be effective when implemented with intensive training, supervision, and monitoring, but few of these therapies have been implemented widely. Instead, the most common treatment approaches draw on self-help principles derived from recovery communities and the experiential knowledge gained by counselors, many of whom overcame their own problem substance use. Drivers Asus X555lb.

Few of these widely available treatment approaches, also known as community-based treatments, have been evaluated rigorously. In an effort to increase what is known about one widely used community-based treatment program for adolescent probationers, RAND Corporation researchers examined the effectiveness of a Phoenix Academy adolescent therapeutic community treatment program in Los Angeles. Phoenix Academies are developed and operated by Phoenix House Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit substance abuse treatment providers in the United States. There are 12 Phoenix Academies in seven states. Days in this residential treatment are highly structured. They are organized around school, community meetings, lectures, encounter groups, counseling, recreation, job functions, and other activities. Monkey Island 2 Special Edition Sottotitoli Italiano.

As youths successfully progress through what is planned as a 9- to 12-month residential treatment, they may earn increasing privileges (e.g., leaves on day passes, possession of personal belongings) and responsibilities (e.g., increasingly interesting and more responsible jobs). The program model is guided by a core set of beliefs about substance abuse, recovery, and “right living” common to most therapeutic community treatments. Research Approach The RAND researchers compared the substance abuse, psychological functioning, and criminal activity of 175 adolescent probationers 13 to 17 years of age who received treatment at the Phoenix Academy with those of 274 adolescents who received some other disposition of their case (e.g., supervised release, detention, camp placement, or placement at a long-term residential group home that, unlike Phoenix Academy, does not specialize in substance abuse treatment). To select probationers who were likely to have similar pretreatment risk characteristics as those entering Phoenix Academy, the researchers interviewed probation officers who make referrals to community placements such as the Phoenix Academy. They asked the probation officers to indicate where they would refer a youth best suited for Phoenix Academy if no bed were available there. Comparison youths were drawn from referrals to the alternative facilities.

The researchers used a case-mix adjustment strategy to correct for pretreatment differences between the two groups. This sophisticated statistical matching procedure ensures that, before treatment, comparison-group youths were similar to Phoenix Academy-treated youths in drug use, criminal history, and many other variables. Participants were interviewed before treatment admission and again for 3-, 6-, and 12-month assessments. Participant retention was excellent: More than 90 percent of the initial sample was located and re-interviewed for follow-up assessments.