Enhancing Juvenile Drug Court Outcomes With Evidence-Based Practices

Summary

Juvenile drug courts were developed in response to a perceived need to intervene more effectively with youth with substance abuse problems. Close collaboration between the court and substance abuse treatment provider is a defining component of the drug court model and is critical to helping youth achieve positive outcomes. Despite the proliferation of juvenile drug courts in recent years, however, evaluation of their capacity to reduce offender substance use and criminal activity has lagged. Moreover, the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 1998) and leading experts (McLellan, Carise, \& Kleber, 2003) have presented a bleak picture of the nation's capacity to meet the treatment needs of substance abusing individuals. Although community-based programs provide the backbone of substance abuse treatment in the nation, their capabilities have not kept up with major scientific advances in the development and validation of evidence-based substance abuse interventions.

Building on our research findings and experience regarding juvenile drug court outcomes as well as the transport of evidence-based practices to community treatment settings, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a relatively flexible and low cost strategy for enhancing the outcomes of juvenile drug courts by integrating components of evidence-based treatments into existing substance abuse services.

Specifically, this project aims to:

Aim 1: Adapt existing intervention and training protocols from evidence-based practices (i.e., Contingency Management for adolescent substance abuse; family engagement strategies from evidence-based treatments of juvenile offenders) for integration into juvenile drug court sites.

Aim 2: Conduct a study to examine youth (e.g., substance use and criminal behavior) and system level (e.g., intervention adherence, feasibility, retention and completion rates, consumer satisfaction, cost estimates) effects of implementing the intervention protocols in juvenile drug courts.

Aim 3: Revise the intervention and training protocols in preparation for a Stage II study if findings are supportive.

Conditions

• Adolescent Substance Use

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Contingency Management-Family Engagement (CM-FAM)

Evidence-based outpatient intervention for adolescent substance use

OTHER

Usual Services (US)

Typical community-based substance abuse treatment services

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

  collaborator NIH

• Medical University of South Carolina

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Scott W Henggeler, Ph.D. · Medical University of South Carolina

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2007-09-30

Primary Completion

2012-03-31

Completion

2012-03-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations