Exploring the implementation of justice-based alcohol and drug intervention strategies with juvenile offenders: Reclaiming Futures, enhanced adolescent substance abuse treatment, and juvenile drug courts

There is a need for practice models to match young people in the juvenile justice system with timely and effective alcohol and drug intervention services. This paper reports on a new demonstration effort in which three practice approaches currently operating in the United States are being combined to maximize the potential of each. This public–private partnership combines juvenile drug courts (funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), adolescent treatment improvement efforts (funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment) and the Reclaiming Futures initiative (funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). Benefits of combining the three strategies are discussed, emergent implementation challenges and lessons are presented, and suggestions for further evolution are provided.

Research highlights
► This article describes innovations which have been developed to link juvenile offenders with substance abuse treatment.
► Reclaiming Futures, evidence-based substance abuse treatment and juvenile drug court are being piloted in use together.
► Dynamics of increasing quality interventions with both increased quality and systems change are discussed.
► Benefits, challenges and future directions of the effort are explored.