Teen Substance Use Treatment: Strategies for Successful Youth Counseling

When young people begin substance use treatment there is often an assumption that they are strongly motivated to make changes in their substance using behaviors. Counselors who press teens to make quick decisions to quit right away are often unsuccessful, as many youth entering substance use treatment believe they have a drug solution not a drug problem. They might experience substances as helping with problems like sleep, fitting in socially, or feelings of boredom, sadness and anxiety; therefore, at least in the short-term, they are often not very motivated to make changes. Youth who are mandated by parents, schools, or courts to attend counseling, sometimes simply want to “get it over with.” Developmental issues connected to autonomy can easily create additional barriers when talking to adults. The perception that adults are trying to take away their autonomy or control them can often lead young people to lie, disengage, or increase resistant behaviors.

The foundation of any good counseling intervention starts with the development of a strong therapeutic relationship. From a clinical point of view, the most valuable and pertinent information about a young person’s substance use habit, and what he or she thinks about it, is going to come from that young person. What most effectively encourages honest communication between the counselor and the young person is the safety fostered by a therapeutic relationship based on trust and respect. For these reasons, therapists will often proceed slowly early in treatment, taking the time to develop the strong relationship and feeling of safety that will support the therapeutic change process going forward. At the same time, counselors use the opportunity provided by this “getting to know you” period to learn more about other areas of a young person’s life.

Substance use often presents as a secondary reaction to chronic stressors, such as depression, trauma, educational issues or family conflict. Gathering information about these areas allows the counselor to better understand co-occurring psychological and situational issues, as the context within which the substance using behavior is occurring. As mentioned earlier, external pressures to change substance use habits are also an important factor in treatment. Whether they are legal, academic or family-based, these pressures may be helpful in motivating youth to enter treatment, and can also provide opportunities to reflect on the impacts of substance using behavior, but are not usually enough on their own to motivate lasting behavioral change. Lasting change becomes more likely when it is connected to a young person’s internally generated motivations and goals.

Engaging clients about things in their lives that they are struggling with or might want to change allows treatment to focus on the person, not just the drug use. This can help the client find their own motivations for change and helps the counselor structure treatment in a way that that connects to those motivations. Counseling sessions can then focus on helping the youth improve their lives in ways that make sense to them, while also creating a relevant context for discussing alternative strategies for satisfying needs and solving problems that do not involve substances.

Bert Klavens is a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor and our Healthy Youth Programs Director.

First in the Nation: Vermont Youth Nonprofit Quits Meta to Protect Teens

Elevate Youth Services has officially quit Facebook and Instagram, becoming the first youth-serving nonprofit in Vermont—and likely the nation—to publicly stop contributing to the social media pipeline. The organization’s accounts will remain visible for wayfinding, but no staff time or resources will be used to post or manage content going forward.

This move follows Vermont’s leadership in passing H.480, the country’s first statewide law prohibiting schools from contacting students via social media and mandating phone-free school days. Elevate leaders say if schools are cutting back for the sake of student wellbeing, then youth-serving organizations must lead by example.

“We’re not here to collect likes. We’re here to show up for lives,” said Favor Ellis, Executive Director at Elevate. “We believe social media platforms—especially Instagram and Facebook—are designed to keep youth addicted, insecure, and commodified. We won’t be part of that pipeline anymore.”

From Algorithms to Actual Rooms

Instead of chasing engagement metrics, Elevate is moving entirely to community-driven, youth-approved communication channels:

• Poster campaigns in corner stores, coffee shops, laundromats, and libraries—places youth already pass through every day.

• Zines filled with art, poetry, resource lists, and real stories—distributed for free at drop-in spaces, schools, and community events.

• Text and email updates for programs and resources.

• In-person events that prioritize trust over clicks.

“Posters and zines may feel slow compared to a social media post, but that’s the point,” Ellis said. “They live in your hands, on your fridge, in your backpack. They can’t be buried by an algorithm. That’s how we are choosing to build community—not through ads, but through relationships.”

Why Now

H.480, signed into law on June 27, 2025, bans personal device use during the school day and prohibits most staff-to-student communication via social media in Vermont schools. While Vermont is not the first state to limit student cellphone use in schools, it is the first to prohibit schools from directly communicating with students via social media—and the only state to enshrine that provision into law. Other states are now considering similar measures. 

“If schools are limiting social media for the sake of student wellbeing, then youth-serving organizations should lead by example,” said Ellis. “We can’t preach digital boundaries in schools and ignore them in our outreach.”

“When we crafted the phone-free schools bill, we knew the next logical step was to ensure that schools stop using social media to communicate directly with students. Elevate Youth Services clearly understood the reasoning behind this provision in the law and is demonstrating their commitment to youth wellness by moving away from social media and toward meaningful in-person connections. I encourage all youth-oriented organizations to follow Elevate’s lead to help shift the cultural norms related to social media and Big Tech’s predatory dominance in our kids’ lives,” said Vermont Representative Angela Arsenault, lead sponsor of the bill.

“As a Vermont father and the leader of a national advocacy group working to protect kids from Big Tech’s deadly business model, I commend Elevate Youth Services on quitting Facebook and Instagram. With this pioneering decision, Elevate is making clear how seriously it takes youth mental health struggles — and how dangerous social media is for minors. Between Elevate’s bold leadership, the state’s new law prohibiting phones in school and banning schools from contacting students through social media, and the Vermont Kids Code, Vermont is now the clear national leader in protecting children from social media harms,” said Josh Golin, Executive Director of Fairplay.

Recent research—including Meta’s own leaked internal documents—links social media use to worsening mental health outcomes for teens. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that excessive social media exposure is a major driver of the youth mental health crisis.

A Call to Action

Elevate is encouraging other nonprofits and youth-centered organizations to rethink their own relationships with Big Tech and to explore what trauma-informed, ethical tech use might look like.

“If we care about youth, we have to be willing to question the platforms we use to reach them,” Ellis said. “Our hope is that by stepping away, others will follow. Social media drains youth into a pipeline of comparison and distraction. We want to redirect that energy into things that nourish—books, music, sports, nature, friendships, and the everyday textures of real life.”

Leaving the Scroll: Why We Walked Away from Social Media

Stepping into the role of Marketing Director for Elevate Youth Services, I did what every seasoned marketer does. I took inventory. What was working, what wasn’t, where the money went, and—perhaps the biggest question of all—where the hours of our very human team were disappearing. Like every nonprofit, we were stretched thin, the fabric fraying in places we couldn’t afford to patch.

It didn’t take long to see the fracture lines. Our audience was split—parents, donors, and community leaders in one camp; the youth we serve in the other. Two completely different languages. Two completely different worlds. And when I looked closer, the cost of maintaining our social media presence didn’t match the return—not in numbers, not in impact, and certainly not in alignment with our mission or values.

As a  parent, myself, I was already navigating the state’s rollout of H.480, the groundbreaking legislation eliminating cellphones in school. Letters came home from the high school explaining that my son would soon experience his education without the constant hum of a screen. It felt radical and deeply sane.

So, I did what good marketers are supposed to do: I ran my own experiment. I deleted the apps from my phone. Kept my accounts for the archives of family photos—memories I still don’t know how to export in a way that feels permanent—but I cut off the easy access. For the first week, I let myself check in on a desktop. The experience felt flat, silly. Endless scrolls for nothing.

By week two, confidence replaced curiosity. My screen time dropped by nearly 60%. I devoured a book in three days. I texted friends and lingered in one-on-one conversations that felt startlingly alive. I reached out to people I hadn’t spoken to in decades—hungry, I realized, for the kind of connection that didn’t require a Wi-Fi signal.

I took all of this to our Executive Director, Favor Ellis. Together, we decided: it was time. Elevate Youth Services would step away from Facebook and Instagram. There’s no shortage of research—you can Google the data yourself—but none of it paints a picture that could justify staying. Social media is a grim place for young people. And, if I’m honest, for adults too.

People tell me we’re brave. They call it leadership. But none of this feels heroic. It feels necessary—an act of preservation, for our teens and, selfishly, for myself.

By week three, the absence of noise made space for something else. Human interaction. The kind that feels rare now, like a foreign language. These platforms are engineered to soothe loneliness, but only in the way a mirage soothes thirst. My brain still reaches for distractions: I wish store magazine racks still offered thick, glossy stacks to thumb through; instead, they’ve been whittled down to gossip and survival tips for a world we barely inhabit. Bookstores feel overwhelming, like stepping into a forest when you’ve been bottle-fed content in teaspoons. Even conversation—real, face-to-face conversation—feels unpracticed. My skills are dull. And yes, sometimes I feel lonely. But the loneliness is real, and there’s something honest in sitting with it.

This week, I read that Neil Young quit Facebook—not over algorithms or advertising, but because Meta’s internal AI chatbot policies allowed conversations with children that were romantic, even sensual. Young called it “unconscionable,” and demanded that his music and content be pulled from the platform. At 79, he drew a line—quietly, firmly—choosing integrity over reach. His decision resonated deeply. It was clarity. A moral line drawn in silicon. And that’s where I am as week four begins: I can’t imagine going back.

There’s nothing in there for me anymore. Instead of scrolling, my mind drifts toward simplicity—toward the idea that maybe this could be a year of less. Less information. Less noise. Less wanting what I don’t need. What I feel now is contentment. Happiness. Calm. No algorithmic currents tugging at me, no continual ads in my face, no constant comparisons, no aching need for validation.

It strikes me that if I wouldn’t hand my child a pack of cigarettes knowing the harm they’d do, why would I hand him a device engineered to do the same—to addict, to erode, to take more than it ever gives back?

Here in Vermont, the antidotes surround us—mountains, rivers, lakes, general stores serving strong coffee and slow conversation. We keep scrolling not because we want to, but because we’ve forgotten the other way. It's less simple to sit in silence than hit “refresh.” But maybe simple is the point.

So we quit. And now, in my fourth week free of infinite scroll, the quiet is loud in all the best ways.

The Creative Campus Is Growing a New Kind of Home

I have walked the Goddard College campus in every season—snow crunching underfoot, lilacs heavy with spring rain, the long golden light of autumn. I earned both my degrees here, but more than that, I grew up here. Goddard didn’t just teach me; it raised me. It taught me that education could be an act of liberation, that community could be a classroom, that creativity could be a way of life.

Now, years later, I have the privilege of bringing that same spirit to a new chapter on these grounds. This summer, Elevate Youth Services opened two new shelters for young adults ages 18–24 on the Creative Campus. Sixteen beds. Two houses. Endless possibility.

It’s more than housing. It’s a home base. A place to land after a long stretch of instability. A place to launch into the future. A place where young adults can take a deep breath, drop their shoulders, and start imagining what comes next.

Here, on land steeped in Goddard’s history of self-directed learning and community accountability, residents have access to more than just a safe bed. They’re connected to job training and employment support, education planning, mental health counseling, and the deep well of creativity that has always flowed through this campus. They share meals, swap stories, plant ideas, and learn what it means to live in relationship with others.

Goddard’s legacy has always been about trusting people—often young people—to chart their own path, and then surrounding them with the resources and relationships to make that possible. These shelters carry that legacy forward.

In rural Vermont, the act of opening doors to young adults who are unhoused or unstably housed is both practical and radical. It says: You belong here. You are part of our community. Your dreams matter. And when you pair housing with education, creativity, and connection, you’re not just ending homelessness for a night—you’re helping to grow whole lives.

The Creative Campus is still a place where people come to learn, create, and imagine a better world. Now, it’s also a place where young adults can begin to build that world for themselves—brick by brick, song by song, job by job, relationship by relationship.

I know firsthand how a place can shape you. Goddard shaped me into the person I am today. My hope is that these two houses will do the same for every young adult who walks through their doors—not just giving them shelter, but giving them roots, wings, and a community that believes in them.

Because when you give young people a place to land and a place to launch, they rise. And when they rise, we all do.