Reclaiming Futures: Communities Helping Teens Overcome Drugs, Alcohol and Crime: Multnomah County, Ore.

The Foundation's initiative, Reclaiming Futures: Communities Helping Teens Overcome Drugs, Alcohol & Crime, was designed to build community solutions to substance abuse and delinquency by developing the systems infrastructure necessary to deliver comprehensive care within the juvenile justice system.The National Institute of Justice's annual Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring study found that the number of juvenile arrestees in Multnomah County who tested positive for drugs quadrupled from 12 percent in 1992 to a record level of 53 percent in 2000. A 1999 survey of youth on probation revealed that 34 percent used alcohol or drugs 3 or more times per week, and 23 percent used them daily. Multnomah County's treatment system is currently inadequate to address this. Sixteen (20 percent) of eighty-one youth committed by the County to state secure custody in 1999 were sent there because they could not access local alcohol and drug treatment or mental health services or because appropriate local services did not exist. The purpose of this project is to strengthen the treatment system for all adolescents, but ensure that youth in the justice system with serious drug or alcohol problems receive the best quality care. The plan is to work with multiple partners to effect changes in the culture of probation and treatment that support strength-based practices. The project will also create an integrated case management system for youth on probation and develop a strategy that mobilizes the community at large and reinvigorates it with the hope and belief that individuals can make the difference in youth around them.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $1,000,000.00

Awarded on: 3/28/2003

Time frame: 4/1/2003 - 6/30/2007

Grant Number: 47639