Many of the same factors that predict delinquent behavior also predict adolescent drug use which has direct implications for intervention with substance abusing juvenile offenders. Because delinquent and drug use behaviors overlap among juvenile offenders, interventions should focus on the predictors of the behaviors rather than on the behaviors themselves. There is insufficient information about factors that relate to treatment retention or the effectiveness of various treatment modalities with minority adolescent substance abusers. Furthermore, both African American and Mexican American Youth are over-represented in the juvenile justice population, and their arrest rates for drug-related offenses have soared. The foci of this study are to explore the utility of the IFOCEC model in understanding treatment retention, to examine the additional factors that predict treatment retention, and to examine the interventions that maximize treatment retention among Anglo, African American and Mexican American high-risk juvenile offending substance abusers. The study will involve data analysis using multiple regression and signal detection analysis from a sample of substance abusing juvenile offenders adjudicated delinquent through the Travis County Juvenile County in Austin, Texas. The investigators plan to use these findings to help secure subsequent RO1 funding to further empirically test interventions that maximize treatment effects with substance abusing minority juvenile offenders.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter