Youth Dually-Involved in the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Systems: Varying Definitions and Their Associations with Trauma Exposure, Posttraumatic Stress, & Offending

Recently, scholars have placed increasing effort on better understanding the unique needs of youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. This study drew from the Developmental Cascade of Multisystem Involvement Framework to examine group differences in trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and offending among youth solely involved in the juvenile justice system and youth with varying degrees of dual-system involvement, including crossover youth (i.e., youth with a history of maltreatment and offending regardless of system involvement), dual-contact youth (i.e., youth who had a history of a substantiated CW maltreatment petition prior to their involvement in the current study), and dually-involved youth (i.e., youth under the care and custody of the state's child welfare system at the time of study participation). Four-hundred adolescents (25% girls, Mage = 15.97) who were recruited from a detention center and completed self-report measures assessing trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress, and offending. Juvenile justice and child welfare records also were collected. Results indicated that, compared to youth solely involved in the juvenile justice system, crossover youth reported significantly more exposure to traumatic events, more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms, and more self-reported offending. In contrast, results indicated few differences between dual-contact youth and youth solely involved in the juvenile justice system; these groups only differed in age and in recidivism charges. There also were few differences between dually-involved youth and youth solely involved in the juvenile justice system; these groups only differed in age and exposure to non-Criterion A traumatic events. The current results suggest that categorizing youth as crossover youth based on their own self-reported history of child maltreatment exposure resulted in more observed differences between dual-system youth and youth solely involved in juvenile justice. The present results have valuable implications for how we operationalize youth's system involvement and highlight the importance of examining child maltreatment as a point of prevention and intervention efforts for these youth.

Gender Differences in the Maltreatment-Youth Offending Relationship: A Scoping Review

Maltreated and child welfare-involved youth are over-represented in juvenile justice systems. These youth are at a greater risk of serious offending and justice system entrenchment relative to their non-maltreated peers. Understanding gender differences in the pathways to justice involvement and the nature of offending among maltreated children is critical for informing policy and practice. Yet, this body of evidence is fragmented. This scoping review identified and narratively synthesized evidence from studies reporting on gender differences in the individual characteristics, maltreatment experiences, child protection involvement and offending profiles of maltreated youth who offend. A comprehensive search of four databases generated 11,568 publications, from which 180 met the review's inclusion criteria. These primary studies included participants aged 8-21 years with a history of childhood maltreatment and youth offending and reported at least one gendered analysis. Some consistent findings were reported across studies. A greater level of child welfare involvement and maltreatment exposure (particularly sexual abuse and multi-type maltreatment) was found for justice involved girls, relative to boys. Maltreated and child welfare-involved boys appear more likely to offend than girls, but findings about how gender moderates the maltreatment-offending relationship were inconsistent. Child welfare systems involvement (particularly foster care and residential care) appeared to be an important moderator for girls, and school performance mediated outcomes for boys. Across this body of evidence, few studies accounted for under-reporting of abuse and neglect when using youth self-report measures of maltreatment. Future research is needed which explicitly explores how gender moderates the maltreatment-offending relationship.

How can mental health practitioners collaborate with child welfare practitioners to improve mental health for young people in out of home care?

BACKGROUND

Young people who grow up in out of home care have higher risk of poor mental health outcomes than peers who grow up with their family-of-origin. Interagency collaboration is an important service-level intervention to improve access to mental healthcare. However, few descriptions of collaboration provide guidance about collaboration between individual practitioners.

AIM

This substudy aimed to contribute to a larger study-the Ripple project-through exploring the experiences of practitioners working across child welfare and mental health services regarding collaboration in the care of young people; and to identify practices that might enhance collaborative work and improve mental health outcomes.

METHODS

Practitioners from across child welfare and mental health services were purposively sampled and participated in focus groups. Recordings and transcriptions of focus groups were analysed to identify themes within and between groups. A cross-sector expert advisory group was involved in this work.

RESULTS

Focus groups were convened with 43 practitioners. We identified four themes during analysis, these were: shared understanding of the history and context of problems; specific skills and practices; self-awareness of workers and carers; and involving and supporting carers.

CONCLUSIONS

A number of practices were identified that might lead to enhanced collaboration between agencies and across interdisciplinary care teams. Supporting mental health practitioners to adopt these might assist interagency and interdisciplinary working.

Social Justice for Crossover Youth: The Intersection of the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Systems

Social workers are critical to promoting racial and social justice. "Crossover youth," a term used to describe youths who have contact with both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, are an especially vulnerable but often overlooked population with whom social workers engage. A disproportionate number of crossover youth are African American. Empirical research on crossover youth is growing, but such scholarship rarely engages with a human rights and social justice perspective. African American children and youths have a distinct place within the history and current context of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. These systems have historically excluded them or treated them differently; now, African American youths are overrepresented in each of them, and evidence suggests they are more likely to cross over. The purpose of this article is to describe the historical and current context of crossover youth, with a particular focus on African American youths, to provide the foundation for a discussion of what social workers can do to promote racial and social justice for crossover youth, including specific implications for practice and policy, as well as broader implications for human and civil rights.