Building an Evidence-Based Brief Intervention Program to Reduce Substance Use and Recidivism Among Juvenile Justice System-Involved Youth in Hennepin County

Hennepin County Department of Community Corrections proposes a county-wide implementation of Brief Intervention for Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use, an intervention developed by Ken Winters, Ph.D. of the University of Minnesota and tailored for the juvenile justice population for youth involved in the criminal justice system in Hennepin County. This intervention has demonstrated promising results in a school setting and has recently been adapted for use with at-risk juvenile offenders. This intervention for juvenile justice youth with mild or moderate problems associated with alcohol or drug use includes four sessions, with each session lasting approximately one hour. Sessions one and three involve individual counseling with the adolescent; session two involves individual counseling with the parent or guardian; and session four provides a booster session for both the youth and parent. The primary goal of the brief intervention is to promote abstinence and prevent relapse among drug using and delinquent adolescents through the development of adaptive beliefs and problem-solving skills. The applicant expects to serve 1,000 youth who meet a definition of mild-to-moderate substance use and their parents in the course of the four-year grant period. CA/NCF