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NEW JUVENILE DRUG COURT FILLING A GAP

When the Messenger-Inquirer published a series of articles in May describing the multiple facets of this community's efforts to fight drug and substance abuse, it became quickly evident that gaps in those services existed.  That isn't surprising, considering the enormity of the problem.  It was discouraging, however, to learn that treatment programs for adolescents was one of the areas missing in action.

To keep today's teenagers with addiction problems from becoming the next generation of hard-core adult drug abusers is a mission that must not be ignored and cannot be hindered by a lack of resources and prevention and treatment options.  The stakes are simply too high for the young people involved and the community as a whole.

At about the time those articles appeared, a new program to help teenagers struggling with addiction was just getting off the ground in Daviess County.  Today we applaud the fact that the juvenile drug court program has nine participants, and that number is expected to more than double in short order.

The juvenile drug court program is the product of the efforts of local youth advocates, substance abuse counselors and judges.  The program has a full-time manager in Kyle Newcom and may be serving as many as 25 teens by the end of the year.  For now, however, it will feel its way along, allowing all involved to learn the best ways to help young people who have few other places to turn for real help.

"We don't want to move too fast at first," Daviess District Judge Joe Castlen said.  "Any time you try something new, you're going to have bumps in the road that you need to work through."

Like 13 other juvenile drug courts in Kentucky, the Daviess County program diverts qualified defendants from jail time and offers them counseling while testing them for drug and alcohol use and requiring employment.

In addition to meeting once a week with Castlen, participants attend group and individual counseling sessions with Newcom and other professional counselors.

The program doesn't ignore issues that typically contribute to substance abuse by adolescents or occur as a result, including low self-esteem, emotional problems and difficulty managing the everyday matters of their lives.

Attempts to establish a juvenile drug court here started more than four years ago.  But finding money to make it a reality proved difficult.  Financing obstacles were finally removed last fall when state and local sources produced $33,000.

Securing future funding for the program may turn out to be as frustratingly difficult as finding the start-up cash.  For the sake of the teenagers who desperately need a substance-free life, we hope that isn't the case.

To Castlen and everyone else who doggedly pursued the program, we say thank you for providing the community a great service.  In turn, the community needs to get squarely behind this good effort to help young people shake their addiction problems and have a real chance at becoming productive, happy adults.