Portland State Magazine Spring 2007

Turning lives around Working with juvenile just ice systems, Reclaiming Futures is giving the courts new choices for teens. WH EN HE WAS only 15,Julian Nazario of Porcland first felt the icy grip of methamphecamine use. Within a couple of years he was both dealing and using the drug. By the time he was 17, his life had spiraled out of control. He had dropped out of high school and was facing serious criminal charges from a juvenile justice system with litcle tolerance for serious drug-related offenses. Nazario was lucky. Thanks to an innovative Porcland State-based program called Reclaiming Futures, and his own hard work, Naz– aria's life is headed in a more positive direction these days. By April he had been clean and sober for more than five months; once his treatment program is successfully completed, criminal charges against him will be dismissed. 16 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2007 Reconnected with his mother, Donna, and two older sisters, he's now working and has completed his GED. This fall, he plans to attend Western Oregon University in Monmouth. He now has a dream: to be a high school teacher. "Reclaiming Futures has given me the tools, the people, and the resources I need to help me solve problems," says Nazario, now 18. "Sometimes I just need somebody to talk to. Ir's a very, very helpful program. As long as you're willing to change, it works." Nationwide, nearly 2 million teens are arrested each year and two-thirds of chem rest positive for drugs and alcohol. Bue the vast majority will receive no treatment for their sub– stance abuse. Although drug-related juvenile incarcerations nearly tripled in a recent 10-year period, one estimate suggests that fewer than 10 percent of these teens will receive substance abuse treatment. The statistics are staggering. According co one study, every time a youth leaves high school and cakes up a life of crime, violence, and substance abuse, the lifetime cost co society can reach $2.3 million. Ir costs $40,000 to keep a juvenile drug offender in jail for a year. Yet effective outpatient treat– ment of a drug and alcohol problem coses only about $3,000, and can, in many cases, reverse the entire course of a life headed in the wrong direction. NAZARI O ' S MOTHE R, Donna, becomes highly emotional when discussing Reclaiming Futures. "It has helped us learn to communicate and build a relationship as a family," she