Reclaiming Futures in Forsyth County (and Elsewhere)

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Reclaiming Futures is a project that tries to help young people in trouble with drugs, alcohol and crime.  They have a blog called Reclaiming Futures Every Day and it's there that I found a post about the site visit that Renate Reichs, the Network Coordinator for Cook County, Illinois made as part of her coaching of the Forsyth County and Crossroads (a collaboration of Iredell, Surry and Yadkin counties) networks.  From the post:

The strengths of both sites were readily apparent. Although
Forsyth County is more urban (think Winston-Salem), and Yadkin, Surry,
and Iredell (“R-dale”–?) are more rural (think Mr. Airy and Andy
Griffith), both sites have committed, experienced, and professional
fellows well versed in cooperative planning and collaboration. There is
also a zeal for the tasks involved in Reclaiming Futures that's very
energizing.
 
This is especially noticeable at the Crossroads site, as there are
three counties working together, meeting on a regular basis, and
assembling and smoothing disparate pieces to fit the Reclaiming Futures Model. Specifically, they have regularly-involved people who are not “Fellows”
to bring a wider pool of experience, commitment, and knowledge to the
table. For its part, Forsyth County has chosen to expand Reclaiming
Futures from its established drug treatment court, championed by its
Judicial and Justice Fellows, thus starting on a firm foundation.
 
All of that is good news. However, one of the challenges that both
sites face — and it is huge — is a lack of treatment resources.
There's great enthusiasm for implementing better screening and
assessment tools (everybody was off and running with their rapid cycle test for screening), but the “Then what?” question looms large:
  • What if the kids funneled through screening and assessment completely overwhelm treatment capacity?
  • How do we grow treatment—good treatment, administered by professionals?
  • Where do the dollars come from?
  • Is Reclaiming Futures capable of pushing treatment expansion, and exactly how does that happen? 

We'd love to hear from sites that have successfully answered these
questions or are grappling with the same problems. Forsyth, Crossroads
(is that “Ire-dale”?), and I await your wisdom.

This sounds like a worthy program and for the sake of our local at-risk youth I hope they are able to solve their treatment conundrum.

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