Roundup: OJJDP Needs Assessment Survey; LGBT Youth in Juvenile Court; CRAFFT Predicts Teens' High-Risk Sexual Behavior

Your Juvenile Justice System: Share Local Needs with OJJDP

• What training and technical assistance does your system need?  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) wants to know. Complete their online needs assessment for your juvenile justice system, and help them improve their understanding of local needs to build capacity and sustainability among juvenile justice organizations. 

 
Juvenile Justice System and Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment News

• Laurence Steinberg, co-author of Rethinking Juvenile Justice, was just awarded $1 million for his work on adolescent developmental psychology -- work that has made him an expert on juvenile justice. Steinberg is the first winner of the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, believed to be one of the largest prizes given in the social sciences.

• The CRAFFT screening tool, which is commonly used to screen youth for alcohol and drug abuse, has an additional benefit. Apparently, the CRAFFT can also predict high-risk sexual behavior among teens, according to new research. 

• Minneapolis did the right -- and unusual -- thing when it defined youth violence as a public health problem and crafted its youth violence prevention strategy accordingly. But its outcome measures may be problematic, says Prevention Action.
  • Related post: Check out this post to see how Boston was able to reduce youth violence just by opening communication pathways between youth and their community.

• Five American teenagers talk about their struggles with prescription drug abuse in a six-part series, "Intervention: Prescription for Drug Abuse," from A&E -- see right for video still. (Hat tip to Christa Myers, Reclaiming Futures Project Director in Hocking County, OH.) Check it out and tell us what you think.
• 25 middle-school students arrested for food fight in Chicago -- leave a comment to let us know what you think.
• Accusations of abuse at a "superjail" for youth in Toronto.
• A national study of three-year-olds shows that exposure to too much TV tends to make toddlers aggressive. (Hat tip to @policy4results on Twitter.)

 
Resources for Juvenile Justice and Adolescent Treatment

• Public/Private Ventures has re-issued Mentoring Former Prisoners: A Guide for Reentry Programs. Though not focused on juveniles, it may have recommendations that apply to teens and those incarcerated before becoming adults. (Another hat tip to @policy4results.) 
• Interested in girls' services? Then you might want to learn more about Florida-based PACE, or get a more detailed look at one of the centers it runs for girls. (Hat tip to Paul Savery.) Alternatively, you might be surprised to learn about the plethora of "girls courts" in California.
• OJJDP recently released a new bulletin on reducing disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system.
• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE) have created a 1-hour, educational module to address teen abuse of prescription drugs. The module is called, "Maximizing Your Role as a Teen Influencer: What You Can Do to Help Prevent Teen Prescription Drug Abuse."
• Long overdue: a national report on the plight of LGBT youth in juvenile court. 

 
Conferences & Webinars

• Webinar: Interpreting the Juvenile Justice System for Limited English Proficient (LEP) Parents, Thursday, November 19th, at 2pm EST. Sponsored by The National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute. (Follow the link, then go to the orange box in the corner to register or listen to past webinars.)
• Webinar: Results Based Public Policy: Using Results to Develop Public Policy, In Good Economic Times and Bad, December 9th, at 2pm EST. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Social Policy. 
• Save the date: The State Associations of Addiction Services (SAAS) and NIATx will be holding their next joint conference and summit on July 11-14, 2010 in Cincinnati. Follow the link to see presentations from 2009 and -- if you get it in by November 30th -- submit a conference proposal.