Pubdate: Tue, 05 Dec 2006
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2006 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Contact:  http://www.telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/509
Author: Lee Hammel
Note: Rarely prints LTEs from outside circulation area - requires 
'Letter to the Editor' in subject

GRANT FUNDS TEEN DETOX

Center to Fill Growing Need

WORCESTER-- The state Bureau of Substance Abuse  Services has awarded 
a $1 million grant to Community  Healthlink to open the state's first 
substance abuse  detoxification and stabilization program for adolescents.

The 20-bed program for youths 13 to 17 years old is  scheduled to 
open in April in Community Healthlink's  Thayer Building at the 
corner of Queen Street and  Jaques Avenue. While some people were 
surprised that there is a need for the lower-level of 
services  provided in six residential facilities across the state  -- 
including one run by Community Healthlink at 280-282  Highland St. -- 
for children as young as 13, the  inpatient facility providing 
medical intervention and stabilization to adolescents will provide 
even more  intense services.

"Sadly there are a lot of kids in Massachusetts using  alcohol and 
other drugs at a shockingly high volume,"  said Deborah J. Ekstrom, 
Community Healthlink president  and chief executive officer. "Some 
need to be medically  detoxed."

She cited figures of the federal Substance Abuse and  Mental Health 
Services Administration reporting two  years ago that 13.1 percent of 
12- to 17-year-olds in  Massachusetts were using illicit drugs such 
as marijuana, cocaine, heroin and hallucinogens. SAMHSA  also 
reported nearly 10 percent of these youths had  developed drug and 
alcohol dependencies.

The Bay State has some of the highest rates of  substance abuse in 
the country, according to Michael  Botticelli, state Department of 
Public Health assistant  commissioner for substance abuse services. 
While the demonstration project the state Bureau of Substance  Abuse 
Services is funding in Worcester is partly a  result of increasing 
levels of substance abuse, Mr.  Botticelli said, it also derives from 
the knowledge of  existing unmet need that the bureau discovered when 
it reorganized its residential programs for adolescents  1-1/2 years ago.

Before the bureau implemented a central intake process  for the six 
residential adolescent programs across the  state, "we had some 
assumptions that kids at that level  of care were being adequately 
addressed in other parts  of the health care system," the assistant 
commissioner  said.

But the bureau found "kids were ending up in general  hospital beds, 
in psychiatric facilities, and they were  ending in acute crisis" 
because "we were just not  servicing kids and families well. We've 
never had, as a  state and as a nation, a specific continuum of care 
of  kids with substance abuse issues."

The new inpatient facility, Thayer Adolescent Motivated  Behavior 
Unit, will be on the fifth floor of the Thayer  Building, where 
another Community Healthlink program  recently closed.

Community Healthlink's 14-day residential program for  drivers 
convicted a second time for driving while under  the influence of 
alcohol closed last month. Community  Healthlink barely made a profit 
on the program after  taking it over in 1992 from Rutland State 
Hospital, and  the drop in enrollment following passage last year of 
a law increasing the penalties for drunken driving forced  the 
program's closure, Ms. Ekstrom said.

The 15-percent drop in enrollment to 797 people, who  had to pay $910 
each, caused an operating loss of  $135,584 in the first 11 months of 
this year, she said.

The detox and stabilization program for adolescents  will combine the 
$1 million state grant with a similar  amount from private insurance 
to pay for the equivalent  of 32 full-time employees, around the 
clock. Those  include a medical director, licensed clinical director, 
operations manager with an expertise in residential  care, a 
consulting physician, registered nurses,  licensed practical nurses, 
master's level clinicians,  counselors and after-care specialists.

Community Healthlink will develop a model program for  youths from 
across Massachusetts who need acute,  medically monitored substance 
abuse treatment and  short-term physical and emotional stabilization. 
They  can remain there for up to 30 days.

The program will be able to treat withdrawal syndromes  for all major 
drugs of abuse, according to Community  Healthlink. Treatment will 
include individual, family  and group therapy, and can include 
medical and  psychiatric services.

Daniel Melle, Community Healthlink director of youth  and family 
services, said the Thayer unit will be "a  hub that will move youth 
to appropriate after-care  services available throughout the state." 
He said that  "engagement of the family as a full partner in the 
aftercare planning process will be critical to the  adolescent's recovery."
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MAP posted-by: Elaine