Adolescent Substance Use and Co-Occurring Mental Health Disorders

Gateway Healthcare offers specialized Child and Adolescent Intensive Treatment Services to youth who are experiencing difficulties with substance use and mental health issues.

Co-Occurring Disorders

Our Co-Occurring Disorders (COD) Program is designed to work with the youth and their family within the context of the adolescent’s social environment (school, community, home, etc.). We provide an array of clinically oriented, community-based services and supports to address the multitude and complex needs of adolescents and their families.

Our Approach

We implement an evidence-based protocol that incorporates Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).  During the treatment, youth and their caregivers learn skills to help manage and change distressing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to past experiences, process life events and situational triggers, and enhance safety and relapse prevention, parenting skills and family communication.

Working with Families

Sessions with parents teach contingency management, parental monitoring, and emotion coaching.  With the teens, added sessions focus on coping with cravings and distress tolerance. These strategies interventions have been shown to improve outcomes for youth with co-occurring disorders. Our highly collaborative treatment is based on learning skills to challenge distorted beliefs and attributes related to these triggers and providing a supportive environment in which youth are encouraged to talk about their experiences and better understand triggers.

We collaborate with Bradley Hospital’s inpatient and outpatient adolescent substance use treatment programs when youth need additional services.