Coffeehouse Nation Posted by:Lloyd Woodward--Sunday, February 11, 2007

What is Coffeehouse Nation? Coffeehouse Nation is a newly formed group consisting of Probation Officer Specialists from the Drug and Alcohol Unit and juveniles who are under Court Supervision. This group was born out of necessity for our youth who are working a 12-step program of recovery from highly addictive drugs. Providing sober fun group activities is the main thrust of the new club. Probation Officers Kelly Tuma and Lloyd Woodward started this program. The two probation officers have applied for funding for the group but activities are already underway and the group is looking for more members now.

Four members of the new club attended the recent Town Hall meeting at South Fayette High School. One of the four sat on the panel of guests. At 17 years old, with two years of clean time, full-time in college and working part-time, Nick M. was a perfect answer to one of the questions from the audience, "will these kids ever really fit into society?" As most of us know, recovering people are often the most creative, intelligent, hard working members of our society. Even though it just started, the Coffeehouse Nation is stacked with inspirational stories...


This new program offers our recovering clients an opportunity to be involved in something more than just 12-step meetings and staying at home. Most of these youth go to school, 12-step meetings, and drug and alcohol outpatient therapy with little to no other interactions. These activities are very helpful but the relapse rate for our clients recovering from highly addictive drugs is still high. While we are not proposing that this group will prevent relapse, we hope to fill a void often left in the lives of recovering youth.

Our initial goal when starting the group was to get these youth together to provide additional support for each other. We have learned that youth can have a hard time in finding a “good”12-step meeting supported by other young people. Often, the result is that either our clients do not attend the meetings regularly or even when they do attend they fail to develop meaningful relationships with others in recovery. In other words, our youth can have a hard times assimilating with other recovering addicts who are not already in their peer group.

Our first meeting consisted of a brainstorming session with a few select youth who currently have a strong foundation in 12-step recovery. We quickly realized that we were on the right track with our initial goals, but with the help of these youth, we identified another goal: helping our youth to re-learn how to have sober fun. Along with building a strong support system and creating networking possibilities, it is now a major aspect of our vision to help these youth learn to have sober fun.

Our next step involves securing funding for activities. This funding will allow us to provide new experiences such as museums, bowling, eating at restaurants, and attending plays. In addition to learning sober fun, these sorts of activities will broaden our juvenile’s worldview and enrich their lives.

Of course, this is something that Probation Officers rarely get the chance to do, considering we spend most of our time trying to get a youth to recognize their problematic behaviors. However, in keeping with the principals established by the Balanced and Restorative Justice approach of which Allegheny County is a pioneer, it is within the mission of the Juvenile Probation Department to do much more than just help a youth to learn to obey the laws. The Competency goals addressed in BARJ clearly address the importance of helping our clients in Juvenile Court with the “development of competencies to enable children to become responsible and productive members of the community.” (Act 33 of Special Session No. 1 was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in November 1995 to amend Pennsylvania's Juvenile Act.)

Our goal in Coffee House Nation is to help our special clients increase their competency. No- we are not teaching a trade or providing work experience. What we are doing, however, is providing a badly needed extra component of competency for our clients who are in recovery from highly addictive drugs. Therefore, our Coffeehouse Nation embraces the following goals for our clients in recovery from highly addictive drugs:

1. Helping them re-learn how to have sober fun.
2. Providing a network of recovery geared to help each client get the most out of the 12-step program by knowing where and when to go to meetings and other functions.

Click to email contacts Probation Officers Kelly Tuma or Lloyd Woodward