FCYU-Feature Story

Taking It With You
A drug treatment program that follows you home

Traditional drug treatment for teens often means being sent to an inpatient facility, far from family and friends. But a program developed by the non-profit Vera Institute has been trying a different kind of treatment: short-term therapy, in your home, with your whole family.

In partnership with the Office of Children and Family Services and other state and city agencies in New York, Vera piloted the program, called Adolescent Portable Therapy (APT), with teens who were in juvenile detention.

“We recognized that there was a population of kids and families whose needs were not being met, who needed a different kind of intervention,” said Evan Elkin, the program’s director.

Researchers found that one in every five youth admitted to the city’s juvenile justice system had been using drugs (usually marijuana) almost every day for the previous month. But in detention, many of those teens were not receiving treatment, or had treatment interrupted when they were moved to another placement or returned home. APT was designed to be a support that would move with the teen from detention back into the community.

Now, APT is also working with teens referred by ACS, New York City’s child welfare agency. The hope is that APT can help prevent teen drug users from being placed in residential care.

Working With Family

Teens who decide to participate are assigned a therapist who will stick with them no matter where they are placed, and who continue to meet with them for four or five months after they are discharged, as they readjust to being back in their neighborhood. APT therapists also meet with the teen’s family or other supportive adults, and they come to the family’s home or any other place the teen and family feel comfortable.

“It’s family therapy, but we expand the definition of family,” said Elkin. “The first thing we do is sketch out a map of the supportive adults in the young person’s life.”

If a youth is in foster care, an APT therapist might work with the foster mother, with group home staff, or with someone from the birth family.

Focusing On Strengths

In addition to its focus on family therapy and treatment wherever the teen is living, what sets APT apart from other programs is its emphasis on strengths.

“Often kids will be very confused by our approach,” Elkin said. “It’s not the Alcoholics Anonymous model. We don’t want to bring teens in and make them admit that they’re powerless. We believe people are inherently able to change, and inherently strong.”

Mike (not his real name), a 17-year-old who entered the program last year, said he liked the individual attention it provided.

“A therapist came to see me, and once I went upstate she called me every week,” he said. “She talked to me about how I felt like when I smoked, and how I felt now that I was clean, and we compared the two. I realized there was a lot of stuff I’d been missing out on when I was high. And it was just helpful to have someone to talk to.”

Finding Alternatives

Eric Kolb, one of the APT therapists, said a lot of the therapy involves figuring out what kinds of situations tempt kids to use, and how they can be avoided or coped with in different ways.

“For instance,” Kolb said, “say a kid fights with mom at night, and the only way he can get calmed down enough to go to bed is to get high. We’d identify that and then talk about what it is about the fights with mom that get him so upset. And then we’d try to bring mom into that conversation, find out if she could say things differently. We take it moment by moment. We let the family know—these are other things you could try.”

Mike was recently discharged to a group home, and his therapist comes to see him there. He said they’re planning to start family meetings with his biological mom and his little brother, and he’ll continue the program for several more months. But he already feels APT has put him on the right track.

“Before, quitting was just something I said,” he explained. “I’d tell people, ‘Yeah, I’m going to quit,’ but I never did. After I started talking with my therapist, I actually wanted to.”