Adolescent Substance Abuse and Crisis Intervention Albert R. Roberts, PhD Kenneth R. Yeager, PhD, LISW What is an effective approach with substance-dependent adolescents who present in crisis? How can social workers, counselors, and health professionals engage treatment- resistant youths? What actions can be utilized to develop a plan of care that youths will find challenging and worth participating in? This article seeks to answer the questions posed through application of Roberts’s Seven-Stage Crisis Intervention Model. Specific attention is given to a case application of Roberts’s model in conjunction with strengths- based perspective and solution-focused treatment approaches. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 5:19–33 (2005)] KEY WORDS: adolescence, substance abuse, mental illness, crisis intervention, comorbidity. This article examines the application of Rob- erts’s Seven-Stage Crisis Intervention Model (Roberts, 2000, in press) with adolescents who have complex cases of mental illness, substance dependence, and remarkable complicating fac- tors. Today’s adolescents are faced with un- precedented access to substances of abuse; to complex peer interactions; and to challenges within the home, community, and legal envi- ronment that can sometimes be overwhelming. The first case reviewed is that of Jonathon M., a 16-year-old with a history of mental illness and drug abuse. Jonathon’s case has a remark- able legal history, one that has complicated his receiving consistent treatment for his emergent comorbid mental illness and substance abuse. Jonathan has been adjudicated by the juvenile court seven times in the past 3 years and is facing additional serious legal consequences. In the second case, Stacy is a 15-year-old Latina girl currently being held at the county youth correctional facility. Her family history indicates that her father is incarcerated in a maximum-security prison and that Stacy was beaten by her alcoholic mother’s boy- friends periodically from age 10 to 12. Stacy From the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University (Roberts), and the Department of Psychiatry and Outpatient Clinic, Ohio State University Medical Center (Yeager). Contact author: Dr. Albert Roberts, Professor of Criminal Justice and Social Work, Director of Faculty Development, Interdisciplinary Program in Criminal Justice, Rutgers Uni- versity, Livingston College Campus, Lucy Stone Hall, B Wing, Piscataway, NJ 08854. E-mail: prof.albertroberts@ comcast.net. doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhi001 19 Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Vol. 5 No. 1, ª Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved.