SAMHSA Twitter Chat to be Held Today

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Get your questions about recovery from addiction and treatment answered by experts during a Twitter chat held today from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. ET and hosted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This event will create a dialogue with experts in the recovery, treatment and prevention fields, to allow the public to ask questions and learn more information. They hope to spread the message that prevention works, treatment is effective and people can and do recover. This September #RecoveryChat will celebrate Recovery Month and will be co-hosted by Dr. Westley Clark, director of SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Kathryn Power, director of SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health Services. You can participate by following and tweeting with the #RecoveryChat hashtag on Twitter.

Researcher Finds More Effective, Lower Cost Solution For Juvenile Justice Treatment

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New research finds that using a method of therapy involving family and community is more effective and costs the juvenile justice system significantly less than traditional methods that focus only on the individual. Charles Borduin, a University of Missouri professor who pioneered multi-systemic therapy (MST), used a cost-benefit analysis of 176 juvenile offenders to determine that the method is 10 times cheaper than therapy that focused exclusively on the offender, according to ScienceDaily. "Most current treatments are based on the idea that the problem lies entirely within the child," Borduin said. "If you look at the scientific literature, it's not about the individual kid -- it's about family problems, low household warmth, high levels of conflict, abuse, neglect, involvement with the wrong group of kids, school problems, and so on.”

Although MST has high costs upfront, Borduin said that using MST on one juvenile offender resulted in savings of $75,110 to $199,374 over a 14-year period.

Recovery schools offer kids support

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Teens trying to stay clean from drugs and alcohol may do better by going to a Recovery High School. There are more than 30 of these specialized schools across the United States. Fewer than 20% of students who have gone through drug treatment programs remain sober once they return home, according to the Association of Recovery Schools. A blog from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation called reclaimingfutures.org explains that the 23 year old program combines education and support.  The program allows students in recovery to get course credit towards a high school diploma or a college degree.