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Major Cities in Montana with Drug Rehab and Treatment Centers:
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866-407-4380
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Drug Rehab Montana
is here to help people with drug and/or alcohol abuse problems in Montana. find treatment options. Due to our diverse networking system we can find a treatment option tailored to each individuals specific situation and needs. We are able to provide all phases of recovery included but not limited to, alcohol and/or drug intervention, drug and/or alcohol detox, in-patient treatment, out-patient treatment, short term treatment (30 days or less), long term treatment (90 days or longer).
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We design personalized treatment programs to provide each abuser with the greatest chance of a successful recovery outcome. Our comprehensive networking system works hand in hand with all of the drug treatment centers in Montana. At Drug Rehab Montana we know that each individual is unique and are treated as such. Deciding upon a treatment option in Montana, or anywhere can be a daunting task for any individual or family, we will guide you through each step of a comprehensive treatment plan for you or your loved one. We are determined in our mission, that every drug and/or alcohol abuser in Montana. that has a desire to change their life will be given a chance to recover from their addiction and we are dedicated to ensuring that they are given the opportunity to do so.
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We realize that each individual in Montana. is in a different financial situation and we will find treatment options for each individual regardless of their financial situation. No matter what your financial situation everyone will receive the treatment help they are looking for.
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866-407-4380
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Sense of school community helps combat crime in MontanaHELENA, Montana – Joe Furshong won’t share the boy’s name, but it’s apparent that the former Central School student will remain the measure of success for the Helena, Montana School District’s effort to foster a sense of belonging among its students.
The district’s student services administrator can’t mask how profoundly the story of the child he referred to as “Sam” revealed the district’s small strides to forge connections, thus cementing Furshong’s dedication to fostering that emotional link with every student.
Sam – a fifth-grader – was a member of a family in transition. For school officials, his address at the Iron Front Hotel was a dead giveaway that he could disappear as quickly as he appeared on their doorstep.
Because Sam wasn’t the first child in that situation to attend Central, staff members were prepared to bring him into the fold through the building’s “New Kids Group" – a group of faculty and students who teach new students the ropes and introduce them to their classmates.
It wasn’t much of a surprise when Sam didn’t show up for school one day, Furshong said. Despite their best efforts, school administrators couldn’t track down Sam, nor the rest of his family, who had checked out of the hotel.
What did come as a surprise was a collect telephone call to the school several weeks later from Sam whose family was en route to a destination in the Midwest where Sam’s parents had secured jobs.
Sam just wanted to let the principal and his friends know that he was OK because he thought they might be worried – he didn’t get to say “good-bye.”
“ If we can give that sense of belonging to kids, we won’t have bullies,” said Furshong. “(The two boys involved in the shootings at Columbine High School) didn’t have that.”
A tense time
Two potentially dangerous situations that occurred at Helena High School this month – one boy brought a gun to school in his backpack while another stashed a homemade explosive in his – are a far cry from the massacre at Columbine High School that stunned the nation in 1997, as did subsequent incidents of school violence.
Nonetheless, the incidents have school administrators and local law enforcement officials considering whether they have done everything they can to ensure they don’t have a Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris living within their midst.
The Columbine shooters slaughtered 12 of their peers and a teacher before turning their weapons on themselves.
And if the district does have students teetering on the kind of rage that drove Klebold and Harris to carry out a sophisticated attack on their perceived enemies – Montana officials recognize the potential always exists – community leaders want to ensure they are prepared to handle it.
“ I’ve learned you can’t prepare for every single thing,” Furshong said this week. “But we can try.”
According to Furshong, that preparedness is two-pronged, with district-wide security being the most concrete and attainable of the two.
At the next level, and somewhat more difficult to define, is the community building that Furshong said his story about Sam epitomizes.
“ They go hand-in-hand,” Furshong said, adding that developing each level to its absolute limit is the goal of the school district.
Securing security
School resource officers Tim Coleman and Roy Tanniehill say one of the many facets of their jobs in law enforcement that they enjoy is that every day holds a new challenge.
And while they have come to appreciate and even expect the unexpected every time their police radios go off, the officers are all about predictability when it comes to school security.
The pair agree they didn’t find anything resembling a level of standardization in security throughout the school district when they were stationed at the city’s schools about five years ago.
“ The school district probably wasn’t where they needed to be at all,” Coleman said, explaining that while the district had some basic principles for security in place, each building followed its own procedures for responding to emergencies.
Montana Police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians can’t work like that, Tanniehill said, adding that he and Coleman – who have received specialized training in the area of school security – immediately recognized that their priority would be to develop a Montana district-wide safety plan.
“ Not all crises are going to be law enforcement situations,” Coleman said. “We all need to know what to do in any situation.”
While post-Columbine society generally associates school security with methods for keeping students safe in the event a gunman opens fire in the gymnasium, the school resource officers (SROs) explain that their plans cover events ranging from snake bites to earthquakes to hostage incidents.
In order to be prepared, the SROs familiarized themselves with every physical aspect of each building in the district, along with the priorities of the staff members and students and unique personalities of all of the facilities.
With that groundwork in place, the SROs started writing a manual in which such factors as the code for “lock-down the school” was the same for all of the buildings, and that the procedures for how to progress from that point were uniform.
“ Everyone has a job and they know what those jobs are,” Coleman said, adding that the fundamentals for security were relatively easy to achieve once everyone agreed on a common method.
That was exemplified by last month’s incident in which student Michael Tynan is accused of bringing a .25-caliber handgun to school in his backpack, allegedly with the intent of threatening or harming another boy with whom he had a dispute.
According to Tanniehill, once school administrators notified law enforcement of the presence of the gun, Tynan’s location in the building was pinpointed and he was removed from the school.
“ It was a good outcome,” said Coleman. “Nobody was hurt, nobody was injured.”
Helena, Montana High School Principal Don Wood-Foucar mirrored Tanniehill’s comments regarding the efficient handling of the incident.
“ Part of our strength is to stay calm in situations like that,” he said, explaining that the emergency plans in place gave his staff a strong foundation for that. “I’m not even sure there was much understanding of what was going on from the kids’ point of view.”
Wood-Foucar did address the students the next morning about the situation and thanked them for their efforts to resolve the situation safely – it was a student who came forward with the information that Tynan had a gun in his backpack.
According to the SROs, the student’s involvement in the arrest of Tynan buoyed their faith that they are getting through to the children they come into contact with every day – a few years ago, they may not have heard about the gun until it was too late.
“ I think our kids are identifying more of the threats that are around them and they’re coming forward more willingly,” Coleman said, adding that frequent drills make emergency procedures second nature for the students. “They feel safe; they know they can trust us and we’ll handle it appropriately.”
The SROs emphasize that while the students are an excellent source of information, they are not the “first line of defense” when it comes to school security. A comprehensive safety plan provides that, Coleman said.
Coleman emphasizes that the SROs don’t want to insinuate a false sense of security – every plan can be improved.
“ It’s not a plan that sits on a shelf,” he said. “It gets used and we are constantly re-evaluating it.”
Banishing the bullies
While the tragedy at Columbine may have opened the nation’s eyes to the threat of school violence, representatives with the Helena School District have been aware of the possibility for more than a decade, according to Furshong.
“ I think ours is a society in which bullying ... is rewarded,” he said, adding that he knows bullying occurs at every school in the district, every day. “It’s what kids see and it’s reinforced in the media – sports, reality TV shows. Bullying is almost endemic.”
Although nothing could have prepared the country to have its sense of security in its schools undermined as severely as by the actions of the Columbine shooters – who apparently perceived themselves as victims of bullying – Furshong believes the district has long been in tune with the potential damage that a bullied or isolated child can wreak.
“ We have a lot of fragmentation and isolation in our bigger buildings,” he said, adding that disconnect has its beginnings in grade school, and it is often compounded as the children progress through the school system.
That’s why – thanks to a variety of state and federal funding sources – the district embarked on a campaign 10 years ago, geared toward making its students feel connected to their peers, their teachers and their communities.
“ We need to develop that respect early on,” Furshong said.
Under the direction of the Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) the district has trained its teachers in developing a more holistic understanding of what shapes positive behavior in students, Furshong said.
That includes factors ranging from nutrition to classroom management – academics is but one aspect along that spectrum, Furshong said.
The educators take that information back to their respective schools where they are required to evaluate on a regular basis how to best address the needs of the students in those unique environments.
Those methods have developed several forms throughout the district, according to Furshong.
At Warren School, students are showered with positive reinforcement for acts of kindness and community-building from their first day of kindergarten, according to Principal Tim McMahon.
Along with providing social skills training twice a month, school staff members encourage the children to take ownership in the school by giving them “jobs” around the building.
In addition, school administrators feature a “Mighty Manner of the Week,” and the names of students who are spotted using the manner are placed in a bucket for a drawing to choose a treat from the Treasure Box.
“ I think anything we can do with kids to make them feel like they’re part of the school, it’s going to have an impact on the kids’ behavior,” McMahon said.
However, McMahon added that the children’s sense of belonging changes as they move from school to school.
“ That process begins anew every year,” he said.
So, while Warren School reaches out to the students in the manner described by McMahon, Helena Middle School is taking different steps to reach out to its students.
Furshong said that along with standard social skills activities, HMS administrators recently decided to bring students who have an inordinately high number of referrals to the administrative staff into the fold.
According to Furshong, administrators identified a group of children falling into that category and assigned adults throughout the building to make at least two contacts with those students each week.
“ It could just be a “hello” in the halls,” he said, explaining that the intent was not to make the students feel as though they were under a microscope, but instead to let them know they were part of the school’s community.
A year later, the students whose assigned adults followed through with the plan have enjoyed a marked reduction in the number of referrals to the office, according to Furshong.
According to Wood-Foucar, by the time students reach the high school level, they are expected to have evolved to a level where the administration can concentrate on educating them.
That education is accentuated by pointed reminders about expectations in social contexts – at that stage, much of the responsibility for community-building relies on self-monitoring, he said.
For the most part, WoodFoucar said, he believes the seeds planted in the grade school- and middle-school levels have taken root by the time the students arrive on his doorstep as ninth-graders.
“ Just as in society, they’re not perfect,” he said of the high school students. “But (the kids) do very well at getting along with each other.”
An ever-evolving process
While the school district and the SROs have different perspectives on school safety, and varying methods of how to achieve it, they share a common goal.
“ Our main priority, our main goal, is to protect the youth of this community,” said Coleman.
Whether that goal is achieved through emergency drills or handing out candy bars to kindergartners who remember to say “thank you,” all groups involved in this process agree they can’t let up, and they must always be re-evaluating their efforts.
Tanniehill and Coleman believe they have been effective in diminishing the risks that once lurked in the school hallways, like dropouts and drug dealers, by implementing the building safety procedures.
But they acknowledge that those same negative influences have simply moved out of the buildings into the parking lots, alleys and playgrounds.
In coming months, the SROs say they would like to develop plans to address those external influences to make the school buildings safer.
“ It’s still out there,” Coleman said. “We just need to keep on it.”
For Furshong, and other district administrators, their challenge remains the same as it has since education was institutionalized – find a way to wipe out bullying and intolerance.
“ It’s going to take years,” Furshong said, adding that new forms of bullying are always cropping up and slipping under administrators’ radar. “But I believe this is worth doing, and that it’s doable.”
Drug Rehab by County
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