Bethpage conference aims to help kids, families in crisis

Police, prosecutors and parents need to find creative ways to help Long Island's struggling children and teenagers during a time of national and local budget cuts, several experts said during a conference at Briarcliffe College on Friday.

The experts cited several successful programs, including a juvenile treatment court that started two years ago in Nassau County.

Rather than sending young offenders to juvenile detention for offenses like shoplifting and having small amounts of drugs, judges there regularly offer teenagers and their families access to substance abuse programs and mental health counseling.

Instead of spending more than $200,000 a year to house an offender in an upstate juvenile facility, the program spends less than 10 percent of that to keep them at home and in school, said Gregg Roth, the former Nassau County attorney. He added that parents get counseling as well.

"When we have a kid in crisis, we usually have a family in crisis," he told a small audience at the Bethpage campus.Daily, intensive treatment works best for young substance abusers, but insurance companies and state budgets rarely cover that, said Howard Riesel, coordinator of an adolescent program at Glen Cove Hospital. In a few weeks, his staff will launch a three-times-weekly project that offers teenagers individual and family counseling and drug screening.

The conference - examining bullying, gangs, suicide and other problems - was organized by Francis Balducci, a retired New York City police officer who chairs Briarcliffe's criminal justice department. He said the timing was especially important because recent reports of juvenile crime have alarmed Long Islanders.

Law-enforcement officials need help dealing with children in trouble, said Suffolk Police Sgt. Jeff Walker, who runs outreach programs for minors. He told of seeing a 5- or 6-year-old boy with blood-spattered hands and pants wandering on a Bay Shore street after midnight a couple of years ago. The boy's mother had been shot by her boyfriend, who then committed suicide, Walker said.

Walker said he has nagging thoughts about what the police could have done. "What do we do to give that boy some kind of psychiatric help? Will he turn to drugs?"