Keywords

More than 50,000 juveniles were incarcerated in the United States in 2014, making juvenile justice involvement disproportionately likely for youth in the United States compared to other countries (Petteruti & Fenster, 2011; Puzzanchera, Hockenberry, Sladky, & Kang, 2018). The juvenile justice system originally separated from the rest of the justice system due to the notion that children are more “redeemable” than adults and should thus be treated with rehabilitation in mind (American Bar Association, 2007). However, the past 40 years have seen a return to a retributive form of justice (Advancement Project, 2010; American Bar Association, 2007). The juvenile justice system is regarded as having a more punitive mindset, compared to education and mental health professionals working with juvenile offenders, who typically view delinquency as a treatable condition (Kapp, Petr, Robbins, & Choi, 2013).

Juvenile justice involvement is inextricably linked to behavioral health (BH). Studies show that the majority of juvenile justice-involved youth (JJIY) experience mental health challenges, often depression and anxiety (Abram, Teplin, McClelland, & Dulcan, 2003; Burke, Mulvey, & Schubert, 2015; Skowyra & Cocozza, 2006; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002). Despite this, JJIY rarely access mental health services (Burke et al., 2015). This is important given the finding that mental health support in childhood (e.g., school- or community-based services, inpatient and/or outpatient treatment) may protect against juvenile incarceration in at-risk youth (Burke et al., 2015; Liebenberg & Ungar, 2014). Additionally, youth’s ability to access mental health services decreases after they become involved with the justice system: only one-fourth of juvenile justice facilities screen for suicide risk, and fewer than half screen for general mental health needs. Further, 90% of JJIY reside in facilities with no mental health professionals (McPherson & Sedlak, 2010).

Justice involvement has profound short- and long-term effects on youth. Short-term effects include decreases in overall educational attainment, partially due to reduced rates of high school graduation (Sweeten, 2006; Tanner, Davies, & O’Grady, 1999). Even juveniles who are motivated to return to school after their incarceration may face unexpected barriers. For example, school administrators are often systemically motivated to block the reentry of juvenile offenders into the mainstream school system, as these youth tend to display problem behavior and may decrease the school’s average level of academic achievement (Mayer, 2005). Additionally, JJIY are often primed to re-offend because of negative peer influences during incarceration (Mathys, Hyde, Shaw, & Born, 2013; Shapiro, Smith, Malone, & Collaro, 2010).

Recent evidence suggests that juvenile justice involvement also has long-term effects on youth in multiple domains. Early incarceration is linked with poor mental and physical health later in life (Barnert et al., 2017), and arrest before age 18 predicts felony conviction by 26 (Ou & Reynolds, 2010). Even those JJIY who manage to escape the cycle of recidivism face significant life challenges throughout adulthood, as justice involvement in childhood predicts greater difficulty gaining and maintaining employment in adulthood (van der Geest, Bijleveld, Blokland, & Nagin, 2016). Research suggests the existence of a vicious cycle: early arrest leads to school dropout, which leads to lower occupational attainment, ultimately resulting in higher rates of arrest in adulthood (Kirk & Sampson, 2013).

All JJIY do not experience these negative effects equally. Poor and non-White students bear the brunt of punitive school policies, likely contributing to the finding that non-White students report feeling less safe in school than do White students (Lacoe, 2015; Mallett, 2016). Regarding sentencing for juvenile offenses, White youth are more likely to be assigned to therapeutic programs, while Black youth are more likely to be assigned to physical labor programs (Cochran & Mears, 2015; Fader, Kurlychek, & Morgan, 2014; Lehmann, Chiricos, & Bales, 2017). Additionally, Black youth receive fewer resources while in the juvenile justice system and are more likely to be placed in high-security facilities (Cochran & Mears, 2015). Black ex-juvenile offenders are more likely to be unemployed than other adults who were not justice-involved in their youth; they also receive lower wages if they are employed—a trend that does not exist for White or Hispanic ex-juvenile offenders (Taylor, 2016; van der Geest et al., 2016).

Gender and sexual orientation also play a role in juvenile justice involvement. Although females are less likely to be sentenced to prison than males, they are significantly more likely to be held in an alternative residential facility than to be put on probation or in other “outpatient” programs (Tam, Abrams, Freisthler, & Ryan, 2016). Females who are imprisoned are typically sentenced to longer periods of confinement, particularly for status offenses (i.e., truancy, curfew violations; Espinosa & Sorensen, 2016). Nearly 40% of incarcerated female JJIY identify as lesbian or bisexual (Wilson et al., 2017). This is in addition to the overrepresentation of sexual minority youth in the entire JJIY population, with approximately 12% of juvenile offenders identifying as sexual minorities (Wilson et al., 2017). Youth who identify as sexual minorities are disproportionately subject to punishment in schools compared to non-sexual minority peers; they are also more vulnerable to exclusionary discipline like suspension and expulsion, which may increase overall dropout rate and lead to initial offense and re-offense (Fabelo et al., 2011; Poteat, Scheer, & Chong, 2016).

Schools play an integral part in the “school-to-prison pipeline ,” which refers to the connection between school discipline, education policy, and juvenile justice involvement. Rates of in-school arrests are rising (in Pennsylvania, they recently tripled over a seven-year period), along with a 300% increase in police presence in schools (Advancement Project, 2010; Mallett, 2016). Despite this, students do not report feeling safer when police are present (Advancement Project, 2010). In fact, police presence may result in educational disruption, as students are temporarily or permanently removed from the classroom for minor misbehavior (Mallett, 2016). Students who are given in-school suspension are nearly five times more likely to drop out of school than other students (Cholewa, Hull, Babcock, & Smith, 2017); school suspension of any kind is directly related to dropout, grade retention, and failure to graduate and inversely related to academic achievement (Fabelo et al., 2011; Noltemeyer, Ward, & Mcloughlin, 2015). A relationship also exists between school suspension and juvenile justice involvement, as students who receive suspensions are up to three times more likely to engage with the juvenile justice system in the year following their suspension (Fabelo et al., 2011).

Method

A guided panel discussion on JJIY was conducted to assess a range of stakeholder opinions with the following objectives: (1) to better understand youth paths to and through the juvenile justice system and (2) to identify interventions effective in mitigating the negative effects of youth incarceration. The panel consisted of 16 people: 7 representatives from state agencies (two from juvenile justice), 5 individuals from a mental health center, 2 individuals involved with foster care (one a foster parent), 1 university staff member, and 1 school district leader. The discussion included the unique needs of JJIY, weaknesses in the juvenile justice and education systems, and how to better serve the students who interact with each system. The following questions were used to help guide the discussion:

  1. 1.

    What are the unique emotional and behavioral needs of youth with connections to juvenile justice?

  2. 2.

    How well are those needs being met?

  3. 3.

    Are you aware of school-based programs or initiatives focused on improving emotional and behavioral functioning for youth with juvenile justice connections? Please describe these programs. Would any be considered exemplary? How could we share innovative practices from these sites?

  4. 4.

    What are the existing infrastructure or organizational supports for this work? How can this be strengthened?

  5. 5.

    What has limited family involvement in guiding school-based programs for youth with juvenile justice connections, and how can these limiting factors be changed?

  6. 6.

    Do you think it would be worthwhile to establish a statewide leadership team that would help to guide and coordinate training and implementation support for school BH programs for youth with juvenile justice connections?

  7. 7.

    How can we increase outreach and involvement with policy leaders from correctional systems to explore mechanisms to advance school BH programs for incarcerated youth?

  8. 8.

    How can departments of juvenile justice, mental health, social services, education, and other youth-serving systems work better to develop and improve school BH programs for youth with juvenile justice connections?

  9. 9.

    What other recommendations do you have?

Per methods described in the introductory chapter, the forum was recorded and transcribed. Following transcription of the forum, the discussion was analyzed qualitatively. Six major themes emerged, which are described below.

Results

Risk Factors

Problems

Participants noted several risk factors that might predict justice involvement or misbehavior in classrooms that may lead to suspension. The two most frequently cited risk factors were mental health issues and difficulty learning. One participant said, “We also see a lot of kids with some depression that manifests itself in aggressive behaviors without a form of treatment… those are the top ones we get. The trauma, the depression, the ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) .”

Research indicates that untreated mental health issues are one major factor predicting juvenile justice interaction, even when oppositional behavior is not considered. Specifically, 41.7% of JJIY meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD , and between 10 and 20% meet diagnostic criteria for major depression (Abram et al., 2003; Teplin et al., 2002). However, participants demonstrated particular concern about student trauma, with one participant stating, “So many of these youth do have trauma in their history. A history of adversity that is somewhat unique, maybe not so much in what they encounter, but in the intensity or frequency of those traumas.”

As many as 93% of JJIY experience some form of trauma before entering the juvenile justice system, which can lead to increased aggression via a learned inability to self-regulate the threat response (Ford, Chapman, Connor, & Cruise, 2012; Rosenberg et al., 2014). Specifically, JJIY average 14.6 separate traumas per youth, three-quarters of which are violent trauma, such as being physically assaulted by a family member or forced into a sexual situation (Rosenberg et al., 2014). Seventy percent of JJIY report at least one type of family dysfunction in their past (Logan-Greene, Tennyson, Nurius, & Borja, 2017). This unique history of adversity may contribute to the development of maladaptive coping mechanisms in these youth. This may contribute to risky behavior, as one participant stated:

Another thing is, many of them self-medicate. So, when you think about drugs, whether it’s alcohol or marijuana, cocaine… many times those are the students who really need mental health assistance. Many of those students should be taking medication for ADHD … but somewhere from the social point of things, from the parental standpoint, the society standpoint, they’re not getting what they need… Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Well, I took marijuana, I smoke before school. I know I shouldn’t, but that calms me down; I can do my work; I can take my test.’

Indeed, around half of JJIY meet the diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder, and between 11 and 14% of incarcerated juveniles meet criteria for a BH disorder (major depressive, dysthymic, manic, psychotic, panic, anxiety, attention deficit-hyperactivity, conduct, or oppositional defiant disorder) and a substance use disorder (Abram et al., 2003; Teplin et al., 2002). The odds of meeting criteria for a substance use disorder were much higher for youth who did have BH disorders, compared to those with no BH diagnosis (Abram et al., 2003).

Participants also named a variety of learning difficulties as risk factors for juvenile justice involvement, specifically referencing Greene’s (2013) lagging skills model, which postulates that “kids are challenging because they lack the skills to not be challenging.” This is a valid concern, as a sample of JJIY with a mean age of 16 was only reading at an eighth-grade level (Baltodano, Harris, & Rutherford, 2005):

Kids who have difficulty reading are going to struggle wherever they are, because so much of what we do in school is reading-based… If you think about the fact that you can’t read… what’s being presented, it’s like us being in this room and speaking in French and trying to figure that out. Like maybe one person had a year’s worth of French and they’re trying to figure this out and they get exhausted.

Participants noted that this exhaustion often results in mutual frustration between the student and the teacher. The student is frustrated because they are asked to perform tasks they are incapable of; the teacher is frustrated because their students consistently fall short of expectations. When discussing this issue, participants indicated that this frustration could lead to students acting out in class, potentially resulting in their removal from the classroom and subsequent placement in either a special education classroom or, depending on the severity of the behavior, an alternative school. Indeed, while youth with disabilities are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, and nearly 40% of those disabilities are learning disabilities (Quinn, Rutherford, Leone, Osher, & Poirier, 2005), it is important to note that behavioral problems, and not just academic skills, also hold JJIY back in the classroom. Regardless, an examination of whether schools are effectively serving youth with special learning needs is warranted (Quinn et al., 2005). These findings would contribute to both a better understanding of how learning disabilities in JJIY contribute to behavioral difficulties (and vice versa) and possible avenues of intervention for these youth.

Participant Recommendations

While it is impossible to eliminate risk factors entirely, there is potential in reducing their impact on juveniles. For example, educating stakeholders and other professionals about the identification of untreated mental health conditions may help facilitate their treatment in schools via school behavioral health services and ultimately prevent a student from being removed from the general education environment (Mallett, 2016). Similarly, in regard to academic difficulties, screening for specific learning disabilities could increase early and ongoing identification and thus help ensure students’ academic needs are met. Further, increasing mental health screenings during entry to the juvenile justice system may increase the accessibility and efficacy of treatment (McPherson & Sedlak, 2010). Lastly, trauma-informed care is an integral component in effectively addressing the mental health needs of JJIY and should be considered at all stages of justice involvement (Branson, Baetz, Horwitz, & Hoagwood, 2017).

Educational Quality

Problems

Participants discussed the quality of education JJIY had received before their interaction with the justice system and how that might contribute to their involvement with the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), with one participant stating, “We are not servicing them appropriately—we don’t have resources and programming available to meet their basic needs academically, so I know their emotional needs are not being met because their academic needs are not being met.” Participants were particularly concerned about how social skills deficits may contribute to special education referrals, as well as how schools meet students’ needs in this domain. One participant noted that under-resourced school personnel may contribute to poor social skills development:

I think we don’t have anyone with expertise in the schools around social [skills] – we have lots of people who are really good at behavior intervention but we don’t have anybody there with expertise just on the social skills training.

A lack of social skills may manifest as aggression, sometimes resulting in youth qualifying for special education services for emotional disability (ED; Mallett, 2016). There is a greater likelihood of at-risk youth being suspended or expelled after they are transferred to a special education classroom (Espelage, Low, Polanin, & Brown, 2013; Wagner et al., 2006). In many schools, there is no structure in place to broadly teach social skills; after-school programs, where social skills are often acquired via increased opportunities for positive peer interactions, often prohibit enrollment of children with even a history of moderate behavioral problems and are ultimately inaccessible to families without ample resources (i.e., money, time, transportation; Mahoney, Parente, & Lord, 2007).

Deficits in social skills are not the only thing that may lead to a disturbance in students’ mainstream education. As one participant noted, school transitions can be difficult for students:

In elementary school you have pretty much one teacher who is with the kids five hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year, for years, and oftentimes that teacher is a second mom. And then those kids move onto middle school, where they do not have the permanency of the one adult who cares for them, and so they have lost a caring relationship with an adult who makes a difference in their lives — and the key of having that caring adult, that one turnaround teacher, that one person who is showing caring, high expectations, and just coaching all the time, is not there.

Furthermore, participants said that positive and efficacious teaching practices, as well as effective behavior management strategies, have a profound effect on students’ educational experience. As one participant expressed:

Teacher training on behavior is a big missing component. Because the way that students are referred for special education … if they were with a stronger teacher who had better classroom management skills, they probably wouldn’t even be in that situation.

This underscores the importance of educating and providing ongoing training to teachers on the psychological and behavioral needs of youth.

Whether children remain in their mainstream classrooms can significantly influence their overall school experience. The quality of education provided in non-mainstream classrooms is not equal to that provided in mainstream classrooms, which means improper removal from the general education environment can have negative effects on academic progress (Morgan, Frisco, Farkas, & Hibel, 2010; Peetsma, Vergeer, Roeleveld, & Karsten, 2001). For example, students in special education classrooms showed lagging cognitive development compared to peers with similar special education needs who remained in mainstream classrooms (Peetsma et al., 2001). Students in non-mainstream classrooms also perform worse in math and reading than their mainstream counterparts (Morgan et al., 2010). Research also suggests that social skills development in special education classrooms may vary greatly depending on the individual classroom environment and quality of instruction (Morgan et al., 2010; Peetsma et al., 2001). Regardless, the academic delay alone is sufficient to make mainstream reentry difficult. One participant expressed this concern:

Even if a student goes into special ed[ucation] for emotional and behavioral disorders without an academic problem, often after having been removed from general education for so long, they are very behind academically… As a former special ed[ucation] teacher, they really weren’t where they needed to be when I got them, maybe even behaviorally, really, they couldn’t handle going into a general ed[ucation] classroom, because they just didn’t have the skills.

The importance of reentry into mainstream classrooms is one of academic attainment. Students with emotional disturbances in special education classrooms are significantly more likely to be retained in a grade than other students, leading to significant declines in graduation rates (Wagner et al., 2006). This may have long-term effects, as a participant noted, “We’re looking at the employability… for the students who have special needs; less than 50% are graduating.”

Participant Recommendations

Schools often do not adequately prepare students to handle their emotions and control their behavior, and being removed from mainstream classrooms for behavioral problems is potentially the first step on a child’s path to justice involvement (Mallett, 2016). Participants suggested that one way to improve children’s social-emotional competence was to implement a social-emotional learning curriculum as a broad preventative measure, with one participant stating, “I think that’s a major concern, that the social-emotional learning aspect is not a part of the curriculum here. We have all these graduation requirements but that’s not in place, for students who need that social-emotional learning curriculum.” Curricula such as You Can Do It! Early Childhood Education Program and Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention have shown promise in reducing children’s aggression and increasing social skills (Ashdown & Bernard, 2012; Espelage et al., 2013). However, participants emphasized that these curricula should not be viewed as a panacea. Extracurricular programs should be made more accessible to youth who may not have access to transportation or the money to purchase equipment. Particularly for at-risk youth, attendance in after-school programs can act as a protective factor (Eisman, Stoddard, Bauermeister, Caldwell, & Zimmerman, 2016). However, youth who need it most may be least able to participate, so it is important to consider individual factors when implementing after-school programs intended to promote social competency.

While improving social competency and emotional control is one solution to the problem of students being removed from mainstream classrooms for behavioral problems, it is also important to educate teachers about how to identify BH problems. According to teacher interviews, teachers take their responsibilities to identify and deal with BH needs seriously, but they lack the knowledge and training to do so (Rothì, Leavey, & Best, 2008). To try to eliminate the possibility that poor classroom management may cause classroom misbehavior, participants also suggested that teachers should receive additional training to increase their skills at preventing disruptive behavior. Classroom management training has been shown to be an effective behavioral intervention, particularly when the training is intended to increase the skills of both teachers and students (Korpershoek, Harms, de Boer, van Kuijk, & Doolaard, 2016).

System Failure

Problems

Some children are simply caught up in an institutional confusion of priorities, noted one participant:

There’s a fine line between the thinking process of discipline and corrections and education and the mental aspect. And sometimes there’s some confusion and different people’s philosophies can be different. … Your philosophy has to be the same. If you’re the kind of person who’s looking at it from more of a discipline, a behavioral, a punishment phase, it’s going to be different to move to a ‘there’s something else going on here,’ a more mental health, a social standpoint.

Despite the fact that the juvenile justice system was initially formed to rehabilitate children, it is typically viewed as disciplinary, rather than focused on mental health and/or rehabilitation (American Bar Association, 2007; Kapp et al., 2013). Participants worried that the higher administration of juvenile justice institutions, alternative schools, or even mainstream schools dealing with emotional disturbances in their students were not sufficiently educated about the mental health needs of children under their care. One participant stated, “They don’t feel the need is that important, and they cut in that area before they cut anywhere else … we need to acknowledge that these needs need to be fulfilled.”

While many administrators rarely, if ever, directly work with juveniles, they are in charge of a critical piece of the machinery for providing BH care: funding. If administrators are not properly educated on the BH needs of their students or do not advocate for BH resources, support for these services diminishes and students with BH needs suffer:

One of the things is definitely funding… We’ve tried several times, and it took us a couple of years, to just get a social worker or a psychologist because we didn’t have the funding. We had the idea of what we wanted the program to look like, we had the idea of what we wanted them to do for our students, but we didn’t have the funds to do it… we had to cut teachers and support staff… there’s another need now, because you cut in one area to bring someone to assist in a different area.

This de-prioritization of mental health and corresponding lack of funds to support such services leads to another problem: a lack of staff with behavioral training. Interviews with teachers indicate that they believe behavioral support is necessary and take their responsibility in this domain seriously; yet, they admit that they do not have the knowledge to deliver such services and require supplemental education to do so (Rothì et al., 2008). Forum participants who were teachers said that they were not equipped to identify behavioral needs and did not know how to provide students with the resources they needed. Regardless, the major underlying theme of these problems centers around lack of funding; as one participant shared, this precludes hiring of trained clinical practitioners:

I think we don’t have anyone with expertise in the schools… we have lots of people who are really good at behavior intervention, but we don’t have anybody there with expertise on just the social skills training… I think it’s just that we don’t have the expertise to know what people who have the skills in counseling would notice and would know what to do… our fishbowl is limited by not having people there with specialized expertise.

Even when experts are present, they are often overloaded with work (Kapp et al., 2013). Consequently, burnout and attrition are high (Kapp et al., 2013). One participant noted that practitioners’ workloads may not even be related to their counseling expertise: “The counselors are inundated with lots of other things besides counseling… doing schedules and testing and other things. I think that’s the biggest issue.”

Participant Recommendations

It is important that administration and staff who serve JJIY agree on the purpose of their services. According to participants, a disconnect on whether the juvenile justice system ought to be punitive or rehabilitative creates confusion and muddies priorities. They recommended that there be an open discussion to create cohesive administrative philosophy. One participant suggested that another potential solution would be sharing leadership between administration, clinical professionals, and educators: “Oftentimes people at the very top are in their own bubble… if you’re going to do a leadership team, you need people who are actually on the ground providing services.”

However, at present, there are certain matters (i.e., funding) that these administration members control, and these must be addressed:

Another issue is that, from being on both sides, the administrators – the principals, assistant principals, superintendents – need to be more educated, more aware of mental health needs. Because a lot of times they don’t feel the need is that important, and they cut in that area before they cut anywhere else, so I think that education is important, and we need to acknowledge that these needs need to be fulfilled so we can be preventive with kids in the system.

However, because educating administrators on the necessity of BH services is a daunting and time-consuming task, participants advised that simply seeking out administrators sympathetic to the need could be a possible stopgap measure. Indeed, case studies of organizational change in juvenile justice systems have found that a cooperative administration is vital to successful reform (Elwyn, Esaki, & Smith, 2017; Rocque, Welsh, Greenwood, & King, 2014). As such, it is possible and sometimes necessary to bypass administration and educate legislators and other government officials who are in a position to provide funding (Rocque et al., 2014).

Continuum of Care

Problems

Participants identified several ways JJIY fall through the cracks of the system and end up removed from mainstream classrooms or involved in delinquency, stating “We have to always think of the whole trajectory of… what happened with each child, from the beginning of their career in school to where they are now, and where did the breakdowns occur.” There are several transitional points in a student’s life where they may be without consistent adult monitoring, including when students are out of school for summer break. Significant changes in behavior or underlying mental health symptomatology may either increase or go unnoticed during these periods.

Additionally, participants were concerned that even when a BH issue was identified, teachers and other staff might be intimidated by the responsibility of addressing BH issues and ignore them, leaving the student to struggle without help:

No one person can handle everything, because those are your most complex kids, and those are the kids who are ultimately probably moving into the DJJ system as they age… they’re hard, and we don’t know what to do… and it goes back to that… thing of, ‘Oh, it’s a guidance counselor problem,’ or ‘Oh, the special ed[ucation] teacher needs to work with them,’ but no, it’s everybody, because they are so complex…We need to have teams that work well together, because I’m not sure we know how to do that yet.

Another potential point where care can become inconsistent is during the transition into special education. Students who have behavioral disorders and other disabilities are often shuffled between classrooms, despite the benefits of classroom stability (Wagner et al., 2006). Many students in special education classrooms are not there because of any special educational need, but instead because of a behavioral need that may not necessarily warrant special education services (Mallett, 2016). As one participant pointed out, there may be disparities in mental health care between mainstream and special education environments:

What happens is that there’s a lot of focus on kids in the regular education environment, making sure they get counseling… but all these children who have been labeled special education—and oftentimes only because of some behavioral issue—are not able to access that. Because we haven’t figured out how to make sure that we’re merging special education and the services that are provided through Response to Intervention.

Participant Recommendations

Participants identified two steps to improve the continuum of care for JJIY. First, examine the breakdowns that occur in the continuum, with emphasis on where agencies fail to collaborate and youth slip through the cracks. Second, find ways to close those gaps. To detect points in the continuum where youth are inadequately served, participants suggested a series of open forums for stakeholders to discuss how to best integrate the juvenile justice, education, and mental health systems. They noted one particular group, JJIY themselves, whose feedback is rarely solicited in the overall aim of improving continuum of care: “You need the youth who are… involved in the system, too. They know their challenges and what kind of support they need.”

Participants also noted that a continuum-wide team of professionals might be helpful in connecting schools, the juvenile justice system, and mental health services to each other: “I think that would be a good team to put in place and… meet continually and help us work with the schools, and the probation officers, and the mental health people in the community, because right now it’s not happening.”

After identifying where breakdowns occur between a community’s service agencies, participants suggested that one of the best ways to bridge the gaps might be to identify community partners. In fact, research has found that forming community partnerships was significantly related to the use of best practices in juvenile justice settings (Farrell, Young, & Taxman, 2011). For example, if agencies that serve children outside of school were to provide information to schools regarding a child’s home life, educational personnel might be better able to address that child’s specific needs. If schools and mental health professionals partner with local businesses, those businesses might be able to provide resources to youth that neither schools nor families are able to afford. One participant shared a story from her agency’s experience:

We built partnerships with not just the mental health agencies, we built partnerships with drugstores and facilities, exercise programs… We knew if we were having a student with a particular problem, we could contact specific agencies and they would send someone to us free of charge to assist us as a group… I’ll give you a specific example. One of the problems we would have is that the parents would not fulfill Medicaid requirements. And even if they did, we had problems getting medical assistance for the kids, getting medication. So we actually partnered with the pharmacy. The pharmacy would actually deliver the medications to the school … We had partnership with a gym—they gave us exercise equipment, so after those students took their meds, they exercised, they did sports a little bit faster, and they were able to be successful during the day.

Environmental Considerations

Problems

Due to the number of risk factors and social influences that may affect the trajectory of youth in the justice system, it is important to consider each as an individual case in both intervention development and individual treatment. Understanding environmental influences on JJIY involves working closely with their families. The juvenile justice system has a checkered history with involving parents, as previous attempts to collaborate have often placed a substantial amount of blame on caregivers for children’s deviant behavior. Due to this, many caregivers still experience stress and guilt when involved, often resulting in them disconnecting from their children’s experiences (Walker, Bishop, Pullmann, & Bauer, 2015). As one participant pointed out, this sometimes perpetuates the underlying problem:

We call them to tell them there’s a problem with their child and we’re suspending them, or we’re doing whatever, and then they don’t know what to do with them or how to respond… we encourage a sense of helplessness on their part, because they don’t know what to do. If they knew what to do, they would do it.

Even when caregivers do not experience helplessness and desire to be informed about their children, there is often a breakdown in communication, resulting in limited information exchange between parties (Walker et al., 2015). Therefore, even though parent involvement is generally regarded as a positive influence in children’s overall mental health, parents are often not consulted with about possible interventions for their child (Walker et al., 2015). Participants believed this could be due to a lack of common language between parents, teachers, and students. For example, while teachers and other school personnel are sometimes trained in how to address behavioral problems, parents likely do not have similar training and experience significant barriers to effective communication because of this lack of education.

Additionally, parents or caregivers may not always be the appropriate person from whom children should seek support, which should be considered when identifying current and possible future family support for juveniles:

In the system we have a lot of grandparents, and they don’t know what to do. I always get on teachers about talking their language to them, because they don’t know some of the basic terms, sometimes, what the juveniles are saying, what they’re talking about. So we need to provide a lot of support because we have a lot of grandparents — because the parents are young, or incarcerated themselves, or not involved with the juveniles’ lives, so a lot of the grandparents are taking over the roles of being a parent.

This is important to consider when attempting to address mental health needs in juvenile justice populations, as youth in grandparent-headed homes are up to three times more likely to have mental health needs than youth in their parents’ homes (Campbell, Hu, & Oberle, 2006). Regardless of who the family support system consists of, however, accessibility is a concern:

We only allow them the time that we’re available, not the time that they’re available, and then we say they’re not involved. How do you be involved when you have to work or when you have childcare issues or other issues that need support?

Participant Recommendations

When working with JJIY, it is important to consider individual differences and the uniqueness of each youth’s history. Interventions for these children should embrace trauma-informed care and consider their current family supports. Participants emphasized the importance of involving parents and caregivers in interventions, and research shows that family-centered interventions for children are more effective than interventions involving only the child (Dowell & Ogles, 2010). Special concern should be given to involving parents of JJIY, as they are likely to have problems accessing services and may have unique service needs. The programs that are most effective at keeping youth out of residential facilities share at least one trait—a specific effort to increase service accessibility (Lee et al., 2014).

Transition from the Juvenile Justice System

Problems

The main goal of many interventions targeted at JJIY is to reduce recidivism. Participants named a number of contributing factors to high recidivism rates, including deviancy training, lack of adequate support when exiting the system, and a vicious cycle of social influences. While there is some conflicting data on the long-term effect of deviancy training, research indicates that the majority of interventions that harm rather than help JJIY are group interventions (Welsh & Rocque, 2014). When grouped together, delinquent youth engage in more antisocial talk; when housed together in residential juvenile justice facilities, they have higher recidivism rates (Mathys et al., 2013; Shapiro et al., 2010). Moreover, as one participant noted, youth may also grow accustomed to the environment itself:

What I’ve experienced is a unique fear. I service the kids that have just come into the system and the kids that have been there long-term. So, for the students and juveniles that have been there long-term, there’s a fear. A lot of times I’ll have to do board reports and have to do recommendations, and when they know they’re up for parole, a lot of them will act out, because they don’t want to go up, because they’ve been there so long—I have a juvenile who’s been there two and a half years over his max, and he’s just got that fear because he doesn’t know what to expect. A lot has changed.

Given this acclimatization to the prison environment, participants were concerned by the dearth of transition support that juveniles receive when exiting the system. There is little follow-through with juveniles after they complete their sentences; their records may not be transferred to schools for months after their release, and there may be no behavior, learning, or transition plans in place (Goldkind, 2011). Although it is particularly important to continue monitoring the mental health of juveniles after their release to prevent recidivism and improve their future mental health outcomes (Underwood & Washington, 2016), participants were concerned that such support was not always in place. With no support, juveniles may have little incentive to continue working toward goals to keep them from returning to the system or little ability to maintain a healthy emotional and behavioral state. This lack of transition support may exacerbate an already-existing cycle of recidivism. One participant described the pattern of re-offense: “You see a lot of the crimes are petty… to gain things like cell phones, gym shoes, things out of a store, to get access to the funding.”

After being incarcerated for a crime, youth experience significant difficulty gaining access to and maintaining employment due to their past incarceration (van der Geest et al., 2016). This could lead to re-offense out of necessity, and this cycle often repeats after their next release. Additionally, even a single arrest is related to higher rates of school dropout, which limits educational attainment (Kirk & Sampson, 2013). Downstream effects of this include reduced ability to find employment later in life and the perpetuation of a life-course cycle of negative outcomes originating with their involvement with DJJ.

Participant Recommendations

Participants suggested several possible steps that could be taken toward reducing the high recidivism rates that characterize our juvenile justice system. The first was mindfulness-based social-emotional training for institutionalized juveniles, which one participant anecdotally said had reduced recidivism at her workplace. Indeed, there is evidence that mindfulness-based programs do reduce violence, substance use, and recidivism in JJIY (Himelstein, Saul, Garcia-Romeu, & Pinedo, 2014; Hoogsteder et al., 2014). But, as another participant pointed out, that is not the only training youth needed in order to help JJIY succeed in their transition back into the general population: “Job training and skills that can promote independence — fiscal, financial means for them — I think that’s the biggest issue to stop them from re-entering DJJ.”

While outcomes from vocational training vary depending on the training, its positive effects are more consistent when this training includes vocational experience (Altschuler & Brash, 2004). In addition to vocational training, youth benefit from increased educational opportunity while in custody, particularly since they often exit detention at an academic disadvantage in comparison to their never-detained peers, making their transition back into a mainstream school setting difficult (Baltodano et al., 2005). However, skill building does not solve all transitional problems. One participant proposed a way to assist youth during periods of inadequate support during the transition from DJJ:

I was talking to my superintendent about transition specialists… having those people set up, because I think that’s where we lose them… For the past two months, we were just having juveniles coming back, I mean, within two weeks … more often because I think they’re not getting those supportive services once they leave, so we have someone who’s kind of checking in with them, making sure that they’re staying on track, you know they’ve established all those goals and that they’re working towards those goals.

Conclusion

Several major themes regarding JJIY emerged throughout this forum—some regarding prevention, some regarding intervention, and some regarding the process as a whole. First, the reoccurring concern from participants regarding the lack of transition support services for JJIY exposes a potential area to target for future prevention and intervention efforts. Fully supporting transitions between grades or teachers could prevent entry to the justice system, or supporting youth entering and exiting the justice system could prevent reentry. Participants suggested transition support could come in several forms, though they stressed the importance of having a consistent adult (i.e., social worker, transition specialist) responsible for guiding youth through these transitions.

Second, communication is necessary to the success of all intervention and preventative measures. Direct, accessible lines of communication between the staff of juvenile justice facilities, educational facilities, and mental health facilities are essential to providing comprehensive, continuous care for JJIY. Furthermore, families are a vital piece of the puzzle when crafting effective interventions for JJIY; helping parents/caregivers overcome feelings of blame and guilt, as well as ensuring that DJJ personnel do not perpetuate those feelings in their interactions, is essential to encouraging family involvement. This may require educating caregivers to ensure that all involved parties are familiar with the basic ideas of school BH. Additionally, youth themselves appear to be an untapped resource in identifying and selecting interventions, and mental health professionals should solicit JJIY feedback.

Third, because schools play such an important role in the school-to-prison pipeline , it is critical we educate policy makers and administration who control funding opportunities used to improve teachers’ identification of students’ behavioral health difficulties. One of the major problems reported by teachers, and supported by research, is undiagnosed mental health issues in students. Integrating courses into educational degree programs that specifically address identification of mental and behavioral health issues in students may help ensure new teachers are effectively equipped to handle these challenges. Providing funds for continuing education for current teachers, specifically to facilitate acquisition of these skills, could significantly impact their students’ outcomes. Providing more education to all stakeholders in schools could help make sure students are referred for appropriate mental health services in order to safeguard them from the negative effects of potentially avoidable involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Lastly, it is important to establish a cohesive vision of mental health for both the juvenile justice system as a whole and its interactions with mental health and educational systems. Producing favorable outcomes for JJIY when each component of the care system functions in isolation is unlikely. Overall, this vision must address how the current system fails to properly serve youth. One participant advocated for examining those youth who avoided the pitfalls addressed in this chapter: “Let’s take a look at what worked for those kids who haven’t returned to the system. What was done on those kids, not just looking at the kids who are always coming back. Those are the kids who get our attention all the time, but what about the kids who have done well? What was the key?”