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." - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine