Recovery: Children, Adolescents, Transition Age Youth, and Families

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Considerable efforts are underway at federal, state, and local levels to extend acute and palliative care models of addiction treatment to models of assertive and sustained recovery management (RM) nested within larger recovery orientated systems of care (ROSC). As that work proceeds, a critical question has emerged about the application of RM and ROSC to the design, delivery, and evaluation of services for children, adolescents, transition age youth, and families (CATAYF). A seminal paper on this question was developed by the City of Philadelphia as part of its systems transformation process (See HERE). Further work in this area is underway in Ohio through the efforts of the Hancock County Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services with funding support from a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration System of Care Grant.

A critical step in the effort to extend ROSC implementation to youth and their families was the development of research-grounded system performance measures specifically related to CATAYF services. Toward that end, the Hancock County Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services conducted a research review to provide a comprehensive menu of potential clinical and systems performance measures. A preliminary draft of that work prepared by William White, Dr. Mike Flaherty, and Precia Stuby with the assistance of Dr. Ralph Tarter, Director of the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research, is now available to share with other communities that may be working along similar lines. That draft document is available HERE. If you have suggestions for additional CATAYF performance measures, please feel free to forward them to Dr. Mike Flaherty at flahertymt@gmail.com. We will make every effort to continue to share the fruits of this work with other communities across the country and to other countries interested in ROSC implementation.