Floyd Farrow Substance Abuse Unit

The Juvenile Hall Floyd Farrow SAU Program is a 40-bed Juvenile Justice Campus Program. The program also houses outpatient services for continuing care and day intensive services for graduates of the program. The program provides client centered strength based residential, day intensive and outpatient substance abuse treatment. The program is modeled after therapeutic community and collaborates with a multidisciplinary team including teachers, probation officers, clinicians, counselors and families.

This county funded program for adolescent boys and girls is located inside the newly build Fresno County Juvenile Justice Campus. The Floyd Farrow program operated on the Therapeutic Community Model houses 40 adolescents and has been operating successfully since 2000.  Each participant is assigned to a group with a maximum of ten other minors, a mental health clinician and a substance abuse counselor. The treatment components include group therapy, individual therapy, multi-family groups, psycho-education, case management and family therapy.  The program is composed of therapy groups, process groups, community groups, life skills, anger management, recreation therapy, art therapy and support groups.  Topical groups are provided based on the needs of the clients.  Examples of this are sexually reactive, trauma and gang prevention components. 

This program had tremendous outcomes. For example during the fiscal year 2008—2009:
- 76% of the juveniles who participated in the FFSAU were drug free six months after completion of the in-custody program.
- 93% of the juveniles had no new convictions during first six months after completion of in-custody program.
- 81% were attending school, working, or engaged in a vocational program six months after completion of in-custody program.
- In the 8 years that we have been serving incarcerated minors we have had more than 40 adolescents graduate with a high school diploma while in our program.
- A recent client satisfaction survey completed by MHS found that more than 70% of incarcerated youth in the program stated that they would refer the program to a friend.