Juvenile drug court: Enhancing outcomes by integrating evidence-based treatments.

Abstract

Evaluated the effectiveness of juvenile drug court for 161 juvenile offenders meeting diagnostic criteria for substance abuse or dependence and determined whether the integration of evidence-based practices enhanced the outcomes of juvenile drug court. Over a 1-year period, a four-condition randomized design evaluated outcomes for family court with usual community services, drug court with usual community services, drug court with multisystemic therapy, and drug court with multisystemic therapy enhanced with contingency management for adolescent substance use, criminal behavior, symptomatology, and days in out-of-home placement. In general, findings supported the view that drug court was more effective than family court services in decreasing rates of adolescent substance use and criminal behavior. Possibly due to the greatly increased surveillance of youths in drug court, however, these relative reductions in antisocial behavior did not translate to corresponding decreases in rearrest or incarceration. In addition, findings supported the view that the use of evidence-based treatments within the drug court context improved youth substance-related outcomes. Clinical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Evidence Base on Outpatient Behavioral Treatments for Adolescent Substance Use: Updates and Recommendations 2007–2013

“…One such model, MST=CM (Henggeler et al, 2006), is discussed above. The other three Integrated models were anchored by the CBT approach.…”

“…Several FBT-E models offer prime exemplars of such partnerships . As described earlier, MST has been embedded in juvenile drug courts to facilitate access to untreated substance-using adolescents, and it has been shown to significantly upgrade usual care in this setting (Henggeler et al, 2006; and to be more economically efficient than standard court services (Sheidow, Jayawardhana, Bradford, Henggeler, & Shapiro, 2012). Similarly, MDFT has been housed in juvenile detention centers to build a continuum-of-care bridge between detention and discharge to community supervision, where it significantly increased treatment linkage and retention (Liddle, Dakof, Henderson, & Rowe, 2011).…”

“…These studies were not selected by Waldron and Turner in order to preserve homogeneity in treatment population and service context for their meta-analytic purposes. The current article included such studies in the selection process, including one pre-2007 study (Henggeler et al, 2006) discussed by Waldron and Turner but omitted from their selected pool. Fourth, the level of analysis at which JCCAP evaluation criteria are applied is treatment type or approach (e.g., ecological FBT) rather than treatment model or brand (e.g., FFT, MDFT).…”

General Responsivity Adherence in Juvenile Drug Treatment Court

“…Henggeler and colleagues (Halliday-Boykins et al, 2010;Henggeler et al, 2006;Henggeler et al, 2012;McCart et al, 2012) have explored this association through the examination of evidence-based treatment in JDTCs. For example, when comparing family court, a traditional JDTC, a JDTC with multisystemic therapy (a comprehensive family-based intervention intended to reduce substance use and delinquency), and a JDTC with multisystemic therapy and contingency management (a behavioral intervention that uses operant conditioning to elicit desirable behavior), they found that the JDTCs were more effective in reducing recidivism than family court.…”

Do Specialty Courts Achieve Better Outcomes for Children in Foster Care Than General Courts?

“…Evaluations of these courts, to date, have focused on the reduction in criminal behavior and recidivism of the youth participants (Henggeler et al 2006;Stein, Deberard, and Homan 2012). Meta-analytic reviews of juvenile DTCs have yielded mixed results (McCart et al 2012).…”