Blog: Adolescent Mental Health - 2009

To help organizations seeking a time- and cost-efficient assessment for adolescents, Inflexxion developed the Comprehensive Health Assessment for Teens, or CHAT, which has been found to be both valid and reliable in research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
The CHAT format is based on the ASI-MV Connect, a self-administered, multimedia version of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) developed by Dr. A. Thomas McLellan. A number of treatment centers, such as the Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando, Florida, are using the ASI-MV Connect as part of the NIATx campaign to streamline their assessment procedures [PDF].

Juvenile Justice System News (Mostly)

• Work in the juvenile justice system? Seen kids hammered for minor drug offenses because they occurred within 1,000 feet of a school? Well, those laws may not work very well. In 2008, the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) did a thorough analysis and critique in one Massachusetts community, called The Geography of Punishment: How Huge Sentencing Enhancement Zones Harm Communities, Fail to Protect Children. (Also, if you happen to have a used Mac laptop you want to give away as a tax-deductible gift, PPI could use one for its many volunteers. Just use the contact form on the PPI website to learn more.)
• Here's a sobering Washington Post editorial on the sexual violence and exploitation endured by young girls on the margins of our society. And guess where many of these girls end up? The juvenile justice system. (Hat tip to Nancy Gannon Hornberger and the Act-4-JJ Facebook page.) Corroboration comes from a new study for the National Institute of Justice showing that poly-victimization is pervasive among girls in the juvenile justice system, based on a sample of girls in South Carolina.

This report on adolescent substance abuse and mental health issues in the federal legislation governing the juvenile justice system is reprinted, with permission, from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of The Link: Connecting Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, published by the Child Welfare League of America. The final fact sheet, suitable for printing, can be found on the Act-4-JJ website. 

 
The first part, below, describes the justification and the key issues; the second part contains recommendations for strengthening the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.

When Congress considers legislation later this year to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), mental health and substance abuse issues will be a top priority.
 
Available data from single site and multisite studies indicate that 70% or more of youth who are securely detained in a juvenile justice facility may suffer with mental health and related disorders; rates of mental health and substance abuse disorders appear to be somewhat higher for girls than boys; and more than 20% of such youth suffer disorders so severe that their ability to function is significantly impaired (Abram, Teplin, McClelland, & Dulcan, 2003; Skowyra & Cocozza, 2007; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002).
 
Among youth under nonresidential court supervision (e.g., on probation), the rate of diagnosable mental health and substance abuse disorders is approximately 50%.
 
By comparison, in the general youth population, approximately 20% of youth suffer with mental health and substance abuse disorders. In addition, justice system involved youth may experience behavioral/emotional disorders for the first time because of contact with the juvenile justice system.

• A potential game-changer in the field of adolescent (and adult) substance abuse: hospitals may soon be required to screen and provide brief intervention for addictions in order to be accredited.
• According to the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NASDUH), adolescent misuse of prescription drugs has dropped, but even so, teens say it's easier to get marijuana than cigarettes. And just in time for back-to-school, SAMHSA released its Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) report on referrals of schoolchildren to alcohol and drug abuse treatment. 

• The so-called "Missouri Model" of juvenile justice reform received more coverage on CNN.
• Meanwhile, Louisiana, which has been attempting for several years to reform its own juvenile justice system by importing the Missouri Model, is seeing mixed results.
• The New York Times reported that four youth prisons in New York routinely broke kids' bones, "shattered" their teeth, and gave them concussions in attempts to discipline them.

When it comes to the juvenile justice system and adolescent substance abuse, there's always something cooking. Check out this week's bonanza of resources and new stories:

• Washington, D.C.'s juvenile justice agency is offering a free service to the elderly: lawns mowed by teens doing community service.
• Nicholas D. Kristof, writing in The New York Times, argued that it makes little sense -- financial or otherwise -- to prioritize prisons over health care. 

[This post was written by Ashley Edwards, Kelly Graves, and Claretta Witherspoon, of the Reclaiming Futures site in Guilford County, NC.]
North Carolina’s Action for Children recently released the 2009 Youth Delinquency Prevention Report Card.  The release of these data will inform service delivery and outreach to adolescents throughout the state, and can be instrumental in helping us advocate for continued investment and expansion of the Reclaiming Futures program. 

Youth Today tipped me off to an upcoming one-hour webinar on conducting mental health screenings and assessments in the juvenile justice system.
It's sponsored by The Council of State Governments' Justice Center and will be held June 30, from 3pm - 4pm EST. Among other things, the webinar will "showcase '10 steps' that have proven to be necessary for effective implementation of mental health screening in juvenile justice settings."
Follow the links to register.

*Photo copyright Adam Foster | Codefor; reposted under Creative Commons license.