Collaboration Between Community Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Systems: Barriers and Facilitators
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Collaboration Between Community Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Systems: Barriers and Facilitators Stephen A. Kapp • Christopher G. Petr Mary Lee Robbins • Jung Jin Choi
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Published online: 2 April 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Recent studies have confirmed a high prevalence of youth with diagnosable mental health disorders within the juvenile justice system, as well as the vulnerability of youth in the mental health system who enter the juvenile justice system. This high prevalence of dual system involvement has spawned challenges of collaboration between the mental health and juvenile justice systems to provide needed services to youth and their families. Seventy-two in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 youth and their parents/guardians, mental health professionals from five different community mental health centers, and juvenile justice professionals in urban and rural communities in a Midwest state in the United States. Professionals, youth and parents identified several important factors that facilitated collaboration, as well as a myriad of barriers that needed to be overcome. Findings suggest ways to improve partnerships between the two systems and the development of supportive policies and procedures. Keywords High-risk youth Community mental health Juvenile justice Collaboration Collaboration barriers
Research has indicated that the majority of the youth in the juvenile justice system have mental health disorders (Skowyra 2006). Out of the *2.2 million youth arrested per year, *600,000 are processed through juvenile detention centers and more than 100,000 are placed in secure juvenile correctional facilities (Shufelt and S. A. Kapp (&) C. G. Petr M. L. Robbins School of Social Welfare, University of Kansas, Twente Hall, 1545 Lilac Lane, Lawrence, KS 66044, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. J. Choi Department of Youth Studies, Kyonggi University, Seoul, South Korea
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Cocozza 2006; Sickmund 2004; Snyder 2003; Skowyra and Cocozza 2007). Recent studies consistently document that from 65 to 70 % of these youth met criteria for a diagnosable mental health disorder (Skowyra and Cocozza 2007; Teplin et al. 2002; Wasserman et al. 2004). In addition, many youth in the mental health system eventually commit offenses that result in adjudication in the juvenile justice system (Foster et al. 2004), so that the prevalence of youth involved in both systems is driven from both directions. This situation has engendered a need for collaboration between the mental health and juvenile justice systems, if youth needs are to be met. In this study we pose two critical research questions: (1) what are the barriers to collaboration between the mental health and juvenile justice systems? and (2) what are ways of facilitating collaboration and overcoming barriers between the two systems? The data for this study was collected as part of a larger, more comprehensive qualitative study that sought to better understand the experiences of youth, their parents, a
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