Strategies

Use specialized courts to offer criminal offenders with drug dependency problems an alternative to adjudication or incarceration

Use specialized courts to work with parents involved in the child welfare system who may lose custody of their children due to substance abuse

Introduce a short-term family-based intervention therapy focused on strengths, protective factors, and risk factors for youth with delinquency, violence, or substance abuse problems, and their families

Provide medications such as methadone to individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder in outpatient, residential, and hospital settings, usually with counseling and behavioral therapies; often called MAT

Regulate mental health insurance to increase access to mental health services, including treatment for substance use disorders

Use an intensive, family- and community-based intervention that addresses individual, family and environmental risk factors that affect antisocial behaviors among serious juvenile offenders

Establish transportation services for areas with low population densities using publicly funded buses and vans on a set schedule, dial-a-ride transit, volunteer ridesharing, etc.

Provide sterile injection equipment and often other treatment and referral services to people who inject drugs; also called needle or syringe exchange programs and needle syringe programs

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Place youth with mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges in foster families that provide a structured, nurturing, therapeutic environment; also called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC)