GRANT BOLSTERS DRUG TREATMENT

SPRINGFIELD - The Phoenix Houses of New England will receive $1.1
million in grant money to provide mobile treatment services to
juvenile offenders and their families in the Hampden County Juvenile
Drug Court.

The grant, awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration during the next three years, will strengthen the
partnership between Phoenix House and the Juvenile Drug Court.

"It is difficult for many working parents to be as involved in their
child's treatment as they need to be," Susan O'Connor, lead case
coordinator for the Hampden County Drug Court, said. "This model
treatment program brings the treatment to them, and addresses the
needs of the adolescent and the family, both individually and as a unit."

The mobile treatment model will allow the Phoenix House and the
Juvenile Drug Court to extend treatment services from Springfield
and Holyoke to suburban areas, including Palmer and Westfield.

O'Connor said treatment can be adapted to parents' work schedules
and it has had a record of success in other urban and rural communities.

O'Connor said the collaboration with juvenile court probation
officers and trial court staff, under the guidance of Judge Rebekah
J. Crampton-Kamukala, has contributed to the success of the program.

The grant includes funding for outcome evaluation by Brandeis
University's Schneider Center for Behavioral Health.

Phoenix Houses of New England - originally called Marathon House -
was founded in 1967 by a coalition of social service professionals,
clergy, business and political leaders in Providence, R.I.

Phoenix House treats 2,500 adults and teenagers through 30 programs
in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.