Reform Efforts Improving Mental Health Services and Coordination for Youth
Aug 18, 2009, Joe Cocozza
Solomon Moore’s article New York Times article illustrates the problems with using juvenile justice systems to meet the mental health needs of youth. Fortunately, there are growing efforts to better serve youth while ensuring public safety.
When mental health services aren’t available, or are poorly coordinated, youth land in the juvenile justice system which exacerbates underlying conditions and contributes to re-offending. Research shows that most of these youth would benefit from more effective and less expensive community-based, non-institutional, settings without reducing safety.
Many jurisdictions are breaking with these failed approaches. Eight states participating in the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change, a juvenile justice systems reform initiative, are coordinating with law enforcement, schools and probation officers to divert youth with mental health needs away from juvenile justice placement and toward expanded treatment services.
When more states keep youth from being unnecessarily confined to access treatment, everyone benefits. Rather than burdening overstretched systems, we can strengthen them while better providing for kids, families and communities.
Joseph J. Cocozza, Ph.D. directs the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice.
- Issues
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Mental health
- States
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Colorado
, Connecticut
, Illinois
, Louisiana
, Ohio
, Pennsylvania
, Texas
, Washington
- Action networks
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Mental Health / Juvenile Justice Action Network