Skills Development Curriculum and Training

Skills Development Curriculum and Training
Working With Substance-Abusing Youth: Knowledge and Skills for Juvenile Probation and Parole Professionals
APPA developed a manual and training curriculum for juvenile probation and parole professionals working with substance-abusing youth. The manual and curriculum contain five modules:

Problem Overview.
Screening and Assessment.
Juvenile Justice Responses to Substance Abuse and Delinquency.
Maintaining Success.
Program and Professional Issues.

Substance abuse prevention, intervention, and treatment are essential to promoting the health and development of substance-abusing youth and to maintaining safe communities. The first point at which juvenile probation and parole professionals must become active with youth is screening and assessment. Each young person must first be screened and then receive ongoing monitoring for alcohol and other drug use. If use is detected, additional assessment services must be provided to help determine the appropriate plan for intervention. Juvenile probation and parole professionals must understand the potential progression of substance abuse and be able to identify characteristic behaviors that help distinguish a problem's severity and related issues. They also often need to work with substance abuse treatment professionals and other service providers to obtain comprehensive assessments of the substance abuse of the youth with whom they work.
Intervention includes prevention, strategies to change behavior, and close collaboration with treatment programs and other service providers working with youth. Prevention programming involves individual, family, and community strategies to preclude the initiation of substance use or interrupt the progression of alcohol and other drug use.
The curriculum and training programs emphasize restorative justice and a strengths perspective in working with substance-abusing youth. The strengths perspective emphasizes recognizing and using the capabilities, talents, competencies, and hopes of youth and their families rather than focusing solely on problems, needs, and pathologies. Strategies for changing behavior that are addressed in the manual include:

Behavioral contracting.
Education.
Positive reframing.
Replacing substance-abuse language and culture with prosocial ones.
Modeling of appropriate values and behaviors by significant adults.
Positive structuring of time and activities.
Counseling techniques.

Counseling techniques draw from solution-focused, brief-treatment approaches that are designed to help youth and families identify problems and possible solutions that will empower them to resolve present and future difficulties. This approach builds on the youth's existing personal, family, and community strengths, using their combined competency and positive mental health rather than concentrating on problems and pathology. This perspective emphasizes understanding the youth's world view and soliciting youth and family involvement in case planning. Specific interviewing techniques are emphasized in the training curriculum.
In addition to work with individual youth, group and family work strategies are recommended. Implementing group strategies for substance-abusing youth is especially useful because these strategies provide meaningful roles and activities for youth, channel peer pressure, help youth develop skills and competencies, encourage a sense of belonging, and provide a safe place for youth to try out new behaviors, attitudes, and values.
The relationship between families and adolescent substance abuse is often reciprocal. Family factors frequently contribute to the initiation and progression of alcohol and other drug use, and adolescent substance abuse has a dramatic impact on the family. Recommended approaches for working with families include family therapy, parent support groups, and parent education and prevention groups. The latter two may be provided fully or in part by juvenile justice agencies. Engaging and enlisting family members to work cooperatively with juvenile probation and parole officers is an important goal for effective intervention.
This comprehensive manual and accompanying training agenda provide the basis for juvenile probation and parole professionals to intervene effectively with substance-abusing youth. The strengths perspective and solution-focused, brief-treatment strategies provide important tools for the juvenile probation and parole professional's repertoire of skills.

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	Skills Development Curriculum and Training Working With Substance-Abusing Youth: Knowledge and Skills for Juvenile Probation and Parole Professionals APPA developed a manual and training curriculum for juvenile probation and parole professionals working with substance-abusing youth. The manual and curriculum contain five modules: Problem Overview. Screening and Assessment. Juvenile Justice Responses to Substance Abuse and Delinquency. Maintaining Success. Program and Professional Issues. Substance abuse prevention, intervention, and treatment are essential to promoting the health and development of substance-abusing youth and to maintaining safe communities. The first point at which juvenile probation and parole professionals must become active with youth is screening and assessment. Each young person must first be screened and then receive ongoing monitoring for alcohol and other drug use. If use is detected, additional assessment services must be provided to help determine the appropriate plan for intervention. Juvenile probation and parole professionals must understand the potential progression of substance abuse and be able to identify characteristic behaviors that help distinguish a problem's severity and related issues. They also often need to work with substance abuse treatment professionals and other service providers to obtain comprehensive assessments of the substance abuse of the youth with whom they work. Intervention includes prevention, strategies to change behavior, and close collaboration with treatment programs and other service providers working with youth. Prevention programming involves individual, family, and community strategies to preclude the initiation of substance use or interrupt the progression of alcohol and other drug use. The curriculum and training programs emphasize restorative justice and a strengths perspective in working with substance-abusing youth. The strengths perspective emphasizes recognizing and using the capabilities, talents, competencies, and hopes of youth and their families rather than focusing solely on problems, needs, and pathologies. Strategies for changing behavior that are addressed in the manual include: Behavioral contracting. Education. Positive reframing. Replacing substance-abuse language and culture with prosocial ones. Modeling of appropriate values and behaviors by significant adults. Positive structuring of time and activities. Counseling techniques. Counseling techniques draw from solution-focused, brief-treatment approaches that are designed to help youth and families identify problems and possible solutions that will empower them to resolve present and future difficulties. This approach builds on the youth's existing personal, family, and community strengths, using their combined competency and positive mental health rather than concentrating on problems and pathology. This perspective emphasizes understanding the youth's world view and soliciting youth and family involvement in case planning. Specific interviewing techniques are emphasized in the training curriculum. In addition to work with individual youth, group and family work strategies are recommended. Implementing group strategies for substance-abusing youth is especially useful because these strategies provide meaningful roles and activities for youth, channel peer pressure, help youth develop skills and competencies, encourage a sense of belonging, and provide a safe place for youth to try out new behaviors, attitudes, and values. The relationship between families and adolescent substance abuse is often reciprocal. Family factors frequently contribute to the initiation and progression of alcohol and other drug use, and adolescent substance abuse has a dramatic impact on the family. Recommended approaches for working with families include family therapy, parent support groups, and parent education and prevention groups. The latter two may be provided fully or in part by juvenile justice agencies. Engaging and enlisting family members to work cooperatively with juvenile probation and parole officers is an important goal for effective intervention. This comprehensive manual and accompanying training agenda provide the basis for juvenile probation and parole professionals to intervene effectively with substance-abusing youth. The strengths perspective and solution-focused, brief-treatment strategies provide important tools for the juvenile probation and parole professional's repertoire of skills.