Mental Health and Juvenile Justice: Building Model for Effective Service Delivery
background
Over the last decade, there has been a steady increase in the attention being paid to the mental health needs of youth involved with the juvenile justice system. The increasing awareness of the needs of this population can be attributed to several key factors:
- The growing recognition of the mental health needs of youth in general and in the increasing number of youth with mental health disorders entering the juvenile justice system;
- Documentation of the high level of unmet need among youth with mental health disorders in the juvenile justice system;
- The development of promising programs and strategies for responding to these youth.
Despite the increased attention and awareness, significant gaps remain in the knowledge base on the nature and prevalence of these disorders among the juvenile justice population. Further, despite the progress, little attempt has been made to link and integrate research and practice advancements into a coherent and comprehensive service delivery model for youth involved with the juvenile justice system.
goal
To begin to address these and other issues, Policy Research Associates (PRA) and the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA), with funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, are jointly undertaking a comprehensive initiative that will synthesize and expand the knowledge base about the nature and prevalence of mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders among youth in the juvenile justice population. The goal of this effort is to develop a comprehensive model for delivering a broad range of mental health and substance abuse services to these youth at critical points of contact within the juvenile justice system.
key activites
The key activities of this project include:
- Conducting a comprehensive review of
the literature to identify and highlight
issues and gaps in the existing research. Our
emphasis is to organize the review by point of
contact with the juvenile justice system (e.g.
intake, detention, disposition, placement, aftercare)
and cross-reference these points with specific
issues or activities (e.g. screening, assessment
and treatment) to obtain a sense of what the
research literature indicates about these issues
at these key points in the continuum.
- Conducting a multi-site prevalence study of mental health and substance abuse needs and services for youth in contact with the juvenile justice system. Three sites are participating in the study including Washington , Texas and Louisiana . In each site, data is being collected within three types of facilities: a secure juvenile correctional facility, a detention center, and a community-based facility or program. Data is being collected through youth interviews using the MAYSI-2 and the V-DISC, record reviews, interviews with key facility staff and focus groups with family members.
- Identifying existing best practices and
programs for providing mental health
services to youth at all points in the continuum
of the juvenile justice process- from intake
to aftercare. To the extent possible, programs
and models are being identified that incorporate
evidence-based principles and practices in their
approach to providing mental health services
to justice involved youth, and that provide services
to youth at key points along the juvenile justice
continuum.
- The data and information collected through these
three activities will be used to inform the development
of a comprehensive model for delivering
a broad array of mental health services to youth at
all stages of the juvenile justice system. It is
anticipated that the model, which will be developed
in conjunction with a group of national experts,
will be:
- general enough to be applied in various settings yet specific enough to be evaluated;
- outcome and evidence-based yet reflective of the realities of the existing service systems;
- proscriptive enough to provide clear guidance to the field, yet contain options to allow for flexible adaptation in different settings and jurisdictions.
The goal is to create a comprehensive model that will subsequently be used by OJJDP and communities across the country to better respond to the mental health needs of youth in the juvenile justice system.
Blueprint