State officials plan to repurpose a former youth lockup at Lewisville into a substance abuse treatment facility for teens, which judges and advocates say will fill a long unmet need in Arkansas.
The 24-bed center is tentatively scheduled to open in January, said Keesa Smith, the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ deputy director for Youth and Families.
Youths at Lewisville will undergo a 90-day residential program and receive up to six months of follow-up from support workers, said Michael Cantrell, Rite of Passage Inc.’s executive director. Rite of Passage is the Nevada-based company that manages Arkansas’ four youth lockups in Alexander, Dermott, Harrisburg and Mansfield. The firm also will manage the treatment center at Lewisville.
“This goes back to what ROP [Rite of Passage] wanted to do when we first came into Arkansas, is to develop these different levels of care for kids,” Cantrell said.
Tenth Judicial Circuit Judge Teresa French said options for youths with substance abuse issues have been scant for the past two years. She oversees a drug court in Ashley County and, after the closure of two residential treatment programs to youths, her staff has been trying to find placements for kids out of state or at inpatient behavioral health facilities.
“It’s very needed,” French said of the planned Lewisville facility. “It’s very much needed in the state to be able to get the clinical treatment for kids that have those substance abuse issues.”
[Interactive map not loading above? Click here to see » arkansasonline.com/1116facilities/]
Juvenile court judges will refer youths who they believe will be good fits for the program. The Division of Youth Services will screen the juveniles for risk factors. If screening shows a youth is eligible, then a clinical assessment will determine if the juvenile has a substance abuse disorder.
The Lewisville facility differs from the state’s four existing youth lockups, which are for juveniles who are court-ordered into the Division of Youth Services custody to serve a set sentence and receive counseling as well as other treatments.
The Division of Youth Services operates under the Department of Human Services.
A department official explained plans for the Lewisville center to juvenile court judges at the Juvenile Judges’ Fall Conference on Friday, department spokeswoman Marci Manley said. . The idea is to give judges another option for youths who go through juvenile court but are not committed to the Division of Youth Services, division director Michael Crump said.
“We felt that it was a need that judges had expressed,” Smith said.
Arkansas received a $10.76 million, two-year grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in September that will fund the Lewisville project, as well as several other programs. The money comes from the federal department’s State Opioid Response Grants.
With the exception of vaping, most Arkansas students report using “drastically fewer drugs” than they did a few decades ago. Drug use among Arkansas youths has dropped steadily since the 1990s, according to the 2019 Arkansas Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The survey was conducted by the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education School Health Services.
The most common substances used are tobacco, alcohol and marijuana, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The percentage of students who reported drinking alcohol has decreased from 52% in 1995 to 25% in 2019. Those using marijuana dipped from 23% in 1995 to 17% in 2019, according to the survey.
Judge Troy Braswell of the 20th Judicial Circuit said he’s seen an increase in youths going through his court with addictions to harder drugs such as methamphetamines or pills. In the past, he said, he was able to send kids with substance abuse disorders to inpatient care, but that’s been difficult since a Hot Springs program stopped accepting juveniles.
“The unfortunate reality is that I’ve had to commit youth to DYS because we don’t have another option,” Braswell said.
He added that he thinks the Lewisville program will be beneficial for Arkansas kids and hopes it will be able to continue past the two-year grant.
The ultimate goal, Braswell said, is to intervene before youths grow up and to keep them from going to prison as adults.
“That’s what we’re dedicated to doing,” he said. “It’s an exciting start to what I hope will be a program for years to come.”
Tom Masseau, executive director of Disability Rights Arkansas, said Arkansas needs a substance abuse treatment facility of this type, but he cautioned that best practices need to be followed, including keeping kids’ stays at the facility short.
Masseau’s group is federally mandated to monitor treatment of people with disabilities and often works in the state’s juvenile treatment facilities.
“I think overall it will meet the needs in ensuring that the youth are being treated and getting some help,” Masseau said. “I just caution making sure we stick to the 90-day treatment program and look at best practices, not just making this into a longer-term stay.”
He added that in addition to the facility, more programs are needed to treat youths close to their homes.
Rich Huddleston, executive director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, agreed. The state still has several under-served areas, particularly in rural parts of Arkansas, he said.
“Kids need to be treated closer to home,” he said. “If you’re not doing that, then the odds of success can really go down.”
Treating children close to home when possible is one of the Division of Youth Services’ stated goals for Phase 2 of its overhaul of the juvenile justice system. Phase 1 included work on the existing lockups and closure of one in Dermott and another in Colt.
The Lewisville facility was a youth lockup until it closed earlier this year. State officials said at the time that it could become a substance abuse treatment facility under Rite of Passage.
Some renovations are needed, including painting cleaning and installing new doors, windows and lights to give it less of a “correctional feel,” Crump said.
Rite of Passage runs several programs across the country that are similar to the one planned at Lewisville, Rite of Passage’s Cantrell said.
“You have this specialty program, this substance abuse program, which I think is going to be awesome because it is designed for those kids who don’t quite need to be in DYS custody,” he said.