Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program Successful in Jail

by Jonathan Weaver

A drug and alcohol contract with Family Services of Western Pennsylvania is continuing to aid Armstrong County Jail inmates during incarceration.

Last week, Family Services Manager of Co-Occurring Programs Amy Bologna said the program is running “smoothly” on the heels of counselors introducing a new option.

“We are going to start running groups in the jail. Right now, we’ve just been doing initial assessments and individual sessions, but we are looking into starting group therapy,” Bologna said. “With the individual sessions, you can work more of the individual needs and work directly with someone one-on-one, but with a group the nice thing is you can get individuals together to help support each other, hear the common needs of the group.

It’s a really good dynamic of the group to get support from one another. We utilize that a lot on the outpatient level, so we’re hoping to model that at the jail and have it be just as successful.”

Bologna explained no more than a dozen inmates would be involved in group therapy sessions and that counselors would work with Jail administrators to formulate those groups effectively and any other recommendations.

“As this program continues to grow, we’re continually looking at our staffing patterns to see what we can do to accommodate the jail need. We now it’s here,” Bologna said. “As soon as we can justify the need to up our days here and/or up staffing, we’ll certainly do that.”

About 50 referrals at the onset of the program, but that number has diminished to about 12 remaining inmates.

Deputy Warden Doug McCully called the jail counselor Chelsea Moses “proactive” in her first few weeks.

“I have seen a positive push forward – and the amount of inmates actually being seen is increasing quite-a-bit,” McCully said.

Bologna, who has been with Family Services since 2008 (while she was in graduate school at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, said it is too soon to tell if inmates will frequent the Kittanning location for further treatment, but she has noticed former inmates enter other inpatient drug treatment centers.

Services are being paid through the Armstrong Indiana Clarion Drug and Alcohol Commission.

Commissioner Pat Fabian was delighted with the direction the jail is heading in with the Family Services contract.

1 Comment

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  By jorn jensen, October 19, 2016 @ 7:30 AM

  Very good. They have a captive audience and an endless supply of taxpayer dollars.

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