Module 1: Overview of the Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Treatment Systems

7. Critical Cross-Cutting Issues

Critical cross-cutting issues that affect youth with co-occurring disorders include adolescent female offenders, cultural issues, and sexual identity. During the past decade, there has been a significant increase of female youth with co-occurring disorders in the juvenile justice system, an increasing concern about the disproportional percentage of minority youth in correctional facilities, and increasing attention paid to the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth. An exercise related to adolescent females provides results of research findings. An exercise related to cultural issues highlights characteristics of culturally competent treatment programs. An exercise related to gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered youth is intended to add names to your growing resource list of people experienced in working with youth with co-occurring disorders. Each of the cross-cutting issues discussed in this section provides additional information to enhance your understanding and collaboration in providing services to this population.