California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC)
Problems addressed
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Country of application
Description

This is a brief intervention that utilizes motivational reinforcement therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat cannabis abuse among adolescents. The goal is to reduce cannabis use and promote abstinence by structuring a support network.
The program offers two motivational therapy sessions and three group sessions using the cognitive behavioral method. The first two individual sessions aim to involve adolescents in the treatment and prepare them for the group sessions, whose objective is to provide training in skills that facilitate the abstinence process (self-control, planning, stress management, emotional self-regulation, and recovery after relapse).

Impact evaluations

Impact evaluation studies revealed significant improvements in the days participants remained abstinent, in the percentage of recovering adolescents without drug abuse or abuse/dependence problems and who remained in the community [1], in the decrease in drinking days [2], and in the reduction of various problematic behaviors in the school setting [3].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Dennis, M., Godley, S. H., Diamond, G., Tims, F. M., Babor, T., Donaldson, J., Liddle, H., Titus, J. C., Kaminer, Y., Webb, C., Hamilton, N. & Funk, R. (2004). The Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) Study: Main findings from two randomized trials. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 27(3), 197–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2003.09.005

[2] Mason, M. J. & Posner, M. A. (2009). Brief Substance Abuse Treatment with Urban Adolescents: A Translational Research Study. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 18(2), 193–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/10678280902724184

[3] Belur, V., Dennis, M. L., Ives, M. L., Vincent, R. & Muck, R. (2014). Feasibility and impact of implementing motivational enhancement therapy–cognitive behavioral therapy as a substance use treatment intervention in school-based settings. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 7(2), 88–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/1754730X.2014.888223