Plan unveiled for adolescent treatment center to serve Northern Virginia youth

Presenters at a community meeting said a planned adolescent substance-use treatment center will provide long-term care locally for Northern Virginia youth who previously had to travel out of state for services.

The presenters described a regional treatment gap that has forced young people to seek care in other states. "This need was identified because there were multiple youth from this community in need of treatment for their substance use disorder who, in fact, [were] having to go to other states, every parts of the country to be able to find the care that they needed," the Presenter said, describing the area as "a real wasteland for treatment for adolescents."

The Presenter credited local stakeholders for responding: community members "jumped in, identified a need, figured out a way to make it happen," the Presenter said. An Agency official added that the center is expected to offer prolonged courses of care locally: "We will have years of treatment that'll be provided to youth here that live within our region, and that can be expanded out to other parts of the state that can receive world class care here at the adolescent treatment center," the Agency official said.

The meeting transcript did not specify the center's opening timeline, bed capacity, funding sources or the agency leading the project. Those details were not provided in the recorded remarks.