Adolescent drug treatment, a family affair: a community day center approach.

This paper describes a day care program for treating youth drug abuse. Day care treatment is situated in the middle, between outpatient care and the full-time alternatives such as residential therapeutic communities. Day care is structured to treat youth drug abuse as a family problem and requires behavioral change in all family members. Some social work interventions aimed at effecting family changes are outlined and illustrated. Follow-up research indicates that this approach is a viable one in treating youth drug abuse.