the programs that address...such as... things like the academic support, help with schooling. a lot of times when students have been using, they miss out key things in their academics. they also provide, recovery schools also provide mental health supports, support related to their addiction recovery, relapse prevention, all those things that are essential to helping increase days abstinence and reduce days using. are the tutors, i suspect some tutoring goes on, are they from the peer group themselves or how are they offered to the membership that attend recovery schools? the academics and recovery high schools and in college programs are done by licensed teachers and staff. the support that is taking place is through also licensed professionals. so the recovery support is maybe through a licensed

alcohol and drug counselor or recovery coach, those types of things. are there any stipulations in terms of engaging the families? it is highly encouraged that families be a part of the recovery process, especially with adolescents and young adults. we know that the chances of a young adult or an adolescent succeeding are going to be greater if they have family support. but what fran said earlier about how over time the parents sort of back off a little bit, it's really true. you see it, so much involvement in the elementary school years and then it sort of dissipates over time and so sometimes it's our biggest struggle to get parental involvement and engagement in the support programs. and i think the biggest thing now for families to understand is that there's a lot of shame and guilt associated once you uncover that your child is using drugs or alcohol. and so like, you know, my family, you know, once they were educated about addiction and they were

educated about that they didn't cause my addiction and that they needed, you know, some help, it wasn't their fault that i became addicted, you know, they were able to do sort of their own recovery and family recovery is really important. and there's quite a bit of social supports for families specifically to do their own sort of healing because, you know, alcoholics and people who are addicted, they definitely don't injure themselves alone. they're in a family unit a lot of times and they take people with them. something that greg, you just mentioned, which is the shame and the secrecy that families have, which contributes by the way, as you know, to your own addiction and in sense of recovery and it's the community. wouldn't it be nice if we were advancing closer and closer into a world where our community embraces the recovery process of alcohol or drug addiction or an eating disorder or obesity or whatever

it is that we're looking at. and substance abuse is definitely one of those areas and the recovery of where we're bringing the community together so that they can then be a part of so the families and the schools are all saying the same messages and that they know. monique, you said something incredibly important earlier to bring back up, it's that delay of onset. we know, by science, if we can delay a young person from using, even experimenting until they're 18, 19 years old, there's a far better chance that they won't have an addiction problem. those are all things that contribute to...so getting the schools, the families, and the communities all working in cooperation and working together not only will help identify but will help to get young people into treatment earlier and will embrace concepts like recovery schools, recovery centers, and families.

and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about family engagement and additional programs to treat adolescents who have an addiction problem. we'll be right back. [music] it is important to be familiar with the proper terminology surrounding addiction and recovery. one of the terms you want to be familiar with is self-help groups. self-help groups are mutual aid groups for recovery support services that include 12-step programs, support groups, and peer counseling groups that meet on a regular basis. for more information on this and other recovery jargon, visit the recovery month web sites.

feeling overwhelmed by current events? don't turn to drugs and alcohol. hey, how was your run? great. substance abuse is not the way to manage life. if you or someone you know needs information or treatment referral, call 1-800-662-help. [music]

mountain manor is a treatment center where we take care of adolescents and young adults who have both addiction problems, substance use problems and co-occurring mental health psychiatric disorders. mountain manor provides a whole range of services for youth and that's really important, that it takes more than one kind of approach to try to get to adolescent drug problems. so we do substance abuse counseling, we do mental health therapy, we do educational programming, we do psychiatric treatment, we do medical treatment with pediatricians, we involve parents, we work with kids on an out-patient level and an in-patient level and everything in between because one size doesn't fit all. and we try to squeeze all sorts of different approaches to tailor make treatment to kids. what's very important is the continuum of care. they come in, they get stabilized in residential treatment and they step down to what we have as a partial hospitalization program, which is 6 hours, 5 days a week. that'll go for a week or two, that steps down to 4

days a week, 3 hours a night. and if they do well, they don't relapse, they're talking, they're working on these skills in the actual environment where these stressers happen, that is where you really get the bang for your buck by them being in the environment where the skills are actually needed. one of the things that's emerging from the very exciting field of neuroscience is an understanding of how the adolescent brain is developing and changing over time and perhaps most importantly that it's not fully developed when you are a young person. so we have this expectation that we can somehow do some magic to kids and they'll be fixed. but that's not what this is about. kids are constantly changing and we shouldn't expect that kids are just young adults, that they're just short adults, kids have their own special dynamic, changing developmental trajectory. you know, just being an adolescent period is a stressful time period. and how do they deal with those situations? you know, in school you get english, reading, math

but not life skills training, you know, how do i talk about the things that i'm going through? how do i go to an appropriate adult to ask questions and get help? so what they do is they turn to things that work and drugs work. marijuana is something that helps them deal with the stress. alcohol is something that helps them deal with their stress or their anxiety and it gives them superhuman powers, sometimes-they think-to be able to talk to girls or to feel tough or to not have fear to meet their day in that kind of an environment. you know, we talk about so much stuff that actually i could relate to. i've never been a situation like this, in a treatment program that i had to spend the night in. a lot of young people use drugs because everybody is doing it. and sometimes because they're, you know, depressed and they need a way to escape. and that's what i've learned here. before coming here, i was a very self-centered person. i didn't care about anybody else's feelings but my own.

i've learned to look at myself and pick out the things that i feel are wrong about myself and work on them to better myself. i've learned new coping mechanisms when i get angry, upset, sad, i have ways to deal with that and people who are here for me, who support me, and who i can talk to. the staff are great. any time i have a problem i can talk to them and they listen and give me good advice. i've reinforced to the family the importance of family therapy, continuing to stay involved; also outpatient treatment is very important. so it's not just like, oh, see ya, you were an inpatient, good luck, have a good life. you know, it's that we want to reinforce ongoing recovery through a type of therapeutic modality. five years from now, i plan on having my own business and making a lot of money. actually i want to have a kid by then, be a good father. things do get better. just coming in here for the first week that i was here,

you know, i felt a lot better. i actually started laughing and smiling and just feeling good about myself, wanting to work out and i can only imagine that on the outside it's just going to get better and better and people can change. mark, what are the key components of an adolescent treatment? a good treatment program for youth is going to have, first and foremost, a comprehensive assessment. they have to have a good understanding of where that young person is at in terms of not just their substance use but all the life health areas that are meaningful to them and that would be their relationship with family, their emotional health, their school and vocational orientation and what kind of legal issues or problems they might be involved with as kind of a function of their substance use. so a broad spectrum assessment is critical so that you can work up a good comprehensive treatment plan. so that's the first thing. then you have to have treatments available to

deal with those things and that's really kind of the second thing. so if there are some issues such as depression going on and we see with, particularly with females, girls in treatment that oftentimes there are these internalizing disorders that are more common such as depression or generalized anxiety disorder, that type of thing. so that's important that you then have gender-specific treatment available as well and sometimes you want to do that in gender-specific groups. so that would be good and matching female counselors with girls in treatment. [overtalking]...some of the problems they may experience would have to do with sexual abuse, emotional abuse by... yes, victimization is one of the leading co-occurring conditions that we see especially in the public treatment programs that we've studied, it's a common...over 60 percent. and with some programs they can either be cognitive therapy, group therapy, individual... cognitive behavioral therapy is really a common

therapy that you see that cuts across most of the evidence-based treatments. and so it's really a core therapy that helps people sort of reappraise how they think about things and how they evaluate things in their mind and then that can lead to behavioral change from a re-evaluation. it's not so much the old, sort of if they get insight, they'll change. it's more: learn how to think more rationally about it and then you can act on that more... and for youth versus adults, that would be a better route for parents to be cognizant of if their child has a problem, mark? oh, i think so. there's a few other things that are really critical components of adolescent treatment as well. let me just say quickly family involvement is absolutely critical, not just counseling while they're in treatment, but coaching parents how to deal with the ups and downs of post-treatment recovery. well thank you, thank you. greg, let's go to you. i try to get-to get placed in a treatment program and i cannot.

my parents can't find anything. is there anything that parents and families can do? yeah. i mean, it's a challenging time for a lot of families. the system that we've set up, you know, publicly and privately, is not the easiest thing to access, you know, behavioral health services. and, you know, there are a lot of stipulations and qualifications that young people need to meet in order to be accepted into a treatment program and have the resources to fund the treatment program. so we do find a lot of young people in that area and a lot of families in that area of not knowing how to access services. and one of the biggest supports that our organization does, connecticut turning to youth and families, we do peer-to-peer support, you know, and we do from a lived experience perspective. so my family can support another family on how we accessed the system and how we kind of talked to

same of how to access state benefits and a young person in recovery knows how to fill out the form down at the social service office to get you on services to access, you know, a bed, you know, there's also that in between. a lot of those things take weeks sometimes. and, you know, what do you do in between? if there's a critical time and there's a lot community-based peer support out there, you know, mutual support groups or, you know, online stuff where people can connect with people and live recovery experience so that way they at least have some social support, you know, if they're in need of treatment. and then there's also a lot of young people who may not need, you know, residential treatment and they might be better suited to stay at home or to be in the community and just, you know, work on the recovery from that place. and greg, just one more thing, in terms of finding recovery services, i know that you're familiar with faces and voices of recovery, but can families

go online and find similar programs like the one you have in connecticut? it's not so easy right now. i mean, honestly, you know, recovery supports for young people is gravely understudied, underfunded, under supported across the board. so while there's a lot of hope out there and there's a lot of young people in recovery, they're not so easy to find. you know, the best supports out there are local, you know, mutual support groups that are focused to young people that are the easiest thing to access. so, you know, whether or not somebody wants to find a meeting in their local area, a lot of the 12-step groups will have, you know, a youth category, you know, that'll say that this meeting might be more focused to young people. monique, how do i get into if i'm in need of a recovery school? how do i approach the various schools? are they available to everyone all over the united states or is it only in certain pockets?

unfortunately, there are recovery high schools in only eight states and collegiate recovery communities in nine states. so i think that speaks right there to how underserved adolescents and young adults are in the area of addiction. however, we are in eight states and we are in nine states and how do you access a recovery high school or collegiate program? well, first you could go to our web site and you can see where the different high schools and colleges are located and it would be as simple as contacting them directly and asking what their enrollment criteria that's going to vary between high schools and college programs. and even individual high schools may have different enrollment criteria. but basically we're looking for students and families that are committed to their education and their recovery, are committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol, other than prescriptions that, you know, are prescribed by a medical doctor and who want an environment that

is academic, first and foremost, with embedded recovery support. and from there, it's pretty open to students who desire and want to seek that out. and how can the public, i mean, obviously if there are families that are among our audience will say, well, you know, i would love to have this, you know, i have a son or daughter in recovery. how do they approach recovery schools to put together a program in a school? a lot of times the recovery high schools and college programs are local efforts to be created because education policy is different from state to state, how it is funded is usually the biggest issue and that again is going to be specialized state to state. and how are they funded? give us some idea. all of the recovery high schools right now are publicly funded whether that be through public education dollars or charter school model at

the high school level. at the college and university that gets a little bit different and is typically more focused on what the university can support or maybe some fundraising efforts. so again it's going to be very local in how they're funded and what access they have to monies to do those types of programs. fran, you spoke about community and we have heard that in order to keep a young person that's in recovery free of alcohol and drugs, again, there has to be a whole support system. how can communities, how can families begin to support considering the lack of extensive, you know, network of recovery support systems for youth, how can families and communities help? families and communities can help a lot. we have over a thousand what we call community coalitions.

and a coalition is a group of interested people in a community coming together for a common goal. and what the coalition's job is, is to connect people to services, connect people with helping to restrict availability of drugs and alcohol in a community, to strengthen laws, policies, and get them enforced to working with your law enforcement officers and associate with the schools. so we, i would say that within every state we have a good handful of coalitions. we need many more. but every state office of behavioral health, alcohol and drugs or mental health should have a listing of those coalitions and i would say parents if they were really looking and were lost and didn't know how to maneuver the waters because some of what you're talking about is very true, i would call the state office first and get a connection and then go from there. well, when we come back, we're going to be talking about what we can do as individuals in order to

help youth not even get into alcohol or drugs. we'll be right back. for more information on national alcohol and drug addiction recovery month events in your town and how you can get involved, visit the recovery month web site at recoverymonth.gov. i'm a sophomore in college this year. man, if you had known me when i was a sophomore in high school, nobody could tell me anything. i gave all my teachers a bad time. they all gave up on me, except my english teacher. eight years teaching high school english, 10 years in recovery for alcohol addiction. to be or not to be. i got help. that's it right there. when you get help, who knows just who you'll help along the way? for drugs and alcohol information and treatment referral for youth or someone you know, call 1-800-662-help. [music]

the mission of southern california alcohol and drug programs is to bring alcohol and drug services to the people in the areas in which they live who might not get these services if these programs are not established. si se puede program is individualized treatment for substance abuse for teenagers, utilizing an evidence- based model called acra. this program came from a federal grant that we receive, from csat and aaft. and what is done is assertive adolescent family treatment. each individual is unique. each individual needs a variety of services to help them on the road to recovery from the chronic

relapsing disease of alcoholism and drug abuse and the chronic nature of mental illness. in addition, there are many other people affected by these illnesses who are in need of ongoing services as well. i've been doing this for 14 years and i finally found something that i can see the change, which is having the youth come in, having the families come in, putting them together and finding the things that they really value. i think that's the most important thing of our program. and also the environment that we sit in. when they come in, they feel accepted, they feel we're very warm, we speak spanish, we're bilingual because most of our clients are, you know, bilingual, so i think that they feel, they feel at home. awsome to see you today, before we begin our session, you know, can i offer you a snack or anything? the curricula itself provides all the family

involvement but we went and tried to make it more latino oriented in the sense of instead of giving them snacks like granola bars or an apple or stuff like that, we change it a little bit and we give them more culturally sensitive like a burrito or hot cheetos that they like. also we have monthly family gatherings where we all pitch in and cook. and i say we all because the staff gets involved, the care giver is involved, even the teenager is involved. and that's what we change in it. i was just going out all the time and drinking and not listening to my mom. and i didn't care what she said or what she did and i just didn't care about anything. i just wanted to do what i wanted to do. i was here before. this will be my second time here. and in the beginning it was helping but i still didn't get it through my head and now everything is

much better, like i get along with my mom. i talk to her a lot about everything. she gained all her trust back. i am extremely proud of this program. it works. it does what i think is most important. it keeps kids in school. it develops better communication and rapport in the home. it helps the youth reduce the gangs and the negative influences in the neighborhood and it gives them time, i don't care if it's a year, that's the most important time when the brain is developing, when you're in high school, when these decisions affect the rest of your life. and if they can reduce their alcohol and drug use and graduate and get along with their families and not get swept up into criminality, i consider

that a fantastic success and that's how i see this program. i really believe this program is doing that. fran, talk to us a little bit about what samhsa is doing to prevent youth from getting into trouble? we're actually doing a lot, especially in the last couple of years. we have, with our new administration, samhsa has made prevention of substance abuse and mental illness a priority, which has really put a lot of energy across the country into doing prevention programs for our young people. the biggest, which we've been doing a lot of talking about, approach, is to get to the parents. we just released a media campaign that showed that 40 percent of our young people between the ages of 12 and 20 have used alcohol and are experimenting with it. now that means 60 percent have not. so we are seeing a steady decline but not enough.

we don't want 40 percent of our young people using. so we are working with our parents in programming, we're working with increasing our community program. we are mixing together both evidence-based programs, which mark talked a little bit about in the treatment area, we have the same type of programs and prevention that are based in evidence with what monique talked about a little bit about environmental programs, changing the conditions and the norms of a community, one community at a time, and adding to this a huge focus on collaborating with all of our federal, state, and local partners. we have found that's really the key, that we need to work with our fda. we need to work with the center for disease control. we need to work with criminal justice and departments of education along with parents and help people see that substance abuse and mental illness is just another illness that we are dealing with in our country just like we are

cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and the rest. and the underage drinking campaign as well. the underage drinking campaign continues to be a focus in this year and the next couple of years samhsa is putting a greater emphasis on underage drinking because underage drinking still remains our number one problem with youth, and it's a preventable problem. so if we can package up everything we've been talking about, put our resources behind it with our collaborative friends, we will begin to make a positive difference and once and for all really bring these numbers down to a manageable level of use. monique, you've mentioned that it is a limited footprint for recovery schools. talk to us a little bit about what the regular school systems, both on the private side as well as the public school systems need to be aware of in order to provide the best possible opportunities for youth who may get in trouble

with some interventions that may basically allow them to have a normal and productive school experience. sure. well, i mean, some students that are chemically dependent are always going to need a recovery school of some sort or that type of support. however, the public schools and the private schools can do a lot to help prevent, as fran was talking about, using some of these collaborative efforts at the state and local levels. and also the schools can provide education prevention intervention services. maybe that would be through a student assistance program, maybe through having something like a chemical health specialist in their buildings to help facilitate and support those students. or if their local community doesn't have a recovery high school or collegiate program, maybe being able to support those students when they're returning from treatment so that they can have access to an adult who is trained in dealing

with addiction and recovery. mark had mentioned earlier that, you know, an adolescent coming out of treatment and working on recovery is going to have issues and they're going to need support and the families need support and education on what that's going to look like. and the schools can also be a part of helping facilitate and educate those families and support those families and students when they return. and just to add one thing, there's also this emerging peer-support models in public schools that we're seeing in connecticut and we're seeing successful uses of support models within a school system where they're addressing, you know, alcohol and drug use, maybe not always to dependent, fully dependent kids, but maybe at risk youth so they would bridge sort of that prevention and recovery sector and have kids acknowledge and talk about their use and sort of connect their use to their consequences, you know, in a school setting