Roundup: Juvenile Justice Reform Gets New Tool; Adolescent Substance Abuse Grants Available; 15% of Teens Think They'll Die Young; and More
Trainings & Conferences
- The Forum for Youth Investment is sponsoring a webinar exploring online communications tools to help youth advocates. It's scheduled for July 8th from 1pm - 2pm EDT.
- "Young People in Recovery, Recovery Schools, and Other Supports," a teleseminar sponsored by Faces & Voices of Recovery, is scheduled for August 18th. It's part of a series for recovery advocates; on July 28th, there'll be another on "The Recovery Bill of Rights: How to Use it in Your Community."
- OJJDP's conference on enforcing underage drinking laws will be held in Texas August 13-14, 2009.
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The Juvenile Justice System on TV: Lake County, Indiana
About six weeks ago, I noted that MSNBC was going to air six episodes on the Lake County, Indiana juvenile justice system on its show, "Lockup."
In an unusual move, the judge in Lake County gave MSNBC full access to film the youth. I haven't seen the show, but here's a local review. You can catch a riveting -- and heartbreaking -- 5-minute trailer for "Lake County Juvenile Justice here.
Has anyone had a chance to see the actual show? Leave a comment and let us know what you thought.
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Juvenile Justice Reform: A New Strategy for Addressing Disproportionate Minority Contact
Anyone who's serious about juvenile justice reform wants to address disproportionate minority contact (DMC), and several major foundation efforts have been chipping away at the problem for over a decade.
Now, TimeBanks USA hopes to bring the "practice of sending minority youth to confinement to a screeching halt."
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Confidentiality for Teens in Drug Treatment
Suppose you provide alcohol and drug treatment to teens.
What do you do if the mother of an adolescent patient is demanding to see her son’s treatment records, but the son doesn't want your program to discuss his treatment with his mother or to share any records with her?
How do you deal with the relapse of a young teen-age patient? Can your program contact the patient's parents? Must you?
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Teens Give Adults a "C" in "Stopping Young People from Doing Drugs"
I just learned about a survey of America's teens conducted last year by an Illinois organization called UCAN that asked them to grade adults on various youth issues.
How'd we do? Not too well. Here's a sampling from our report card:
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Roundup: Judge Opens His Own Alternative School; Restorative Justice Pays Off; South African Teens Get High on Anti-AIDS Drug; and More
- A St. Louis family court judge has taken the unusual step of opening his own alternative school for youth in the justice system. The school features lots of oversight and plenty of after-school activities.
- The families of kids detained in San Francisco won't be charged after all. The city's head of juvenile probation has withdrawn the original proposal to collect fees for detained teens. He stated that only families of youth from outside the city (an estimated 30% of detained youth) would have been charged.
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Strength-Based Focus, Positive Youth Development and Rekindling Hope
"Strength-based” and “developmentally appropriate” models are frequently mentioned and often encouraged throughout justice and treatment programming for young people. But between managed care mandates, budget cuts and staffing reductions, the reality is that one’s strength-based mindset and focus on youth development can sometimes be lost. So as we build and protect improved systems of care and opportunity for young people (as Reclaiming Futures tries to do), how do we assure that we maintain a rigorous focus on strength-based approaches for diverse groups of youth, families, organizations, and communities?
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Effective Mental Health Screening in Juvenile Justice - 10 Key Steps: a Webinar
Youth Today tipped me off to an upcoming one-hour webinar on conducting mental health screenings and assessments in the juvenile justice system.
It's sponsored by The Council of State Governments' Justice Center and will be held June 30, from 3pm - 4pm EST. Among other things, the webinar will "showcase '10 steps' that have proven to be necessary for effective implementation of mental health screening in juvenile justice settings."
Follow the links to register.
*Photo copyright Adam Foster | Codefor; reposted under Creative Commons license.
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Juvenile Delinquency: an Alternative Explanation, circa 1950
Over the years, you've probably seen various theories to explain why teens turn to crime, but I'm pretty sure you haven't run across this one: caffeine.
Yes, that's right. Here's a 1948 ad for an instant coffee substitute called Postum, in which "coffee nerves" cause a woman to drive her son (who's apparently also over-caffeinated) into the streets. He promptly steals fruit from a local market.
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Roundup: Charging Families of Detained Kids Proposed; Swine Flu in Baltimore Juvenile Justice Facility; and More
Charging families for detained children? That's what San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing, along with a host of other fees, to balance the city budget. Although the fees would be waived for foster children and families making 30% or less of the local median income, the proposal has come under serious fire from the City Supervisor.- Three youth in the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice facility have swine flu, and 18 other youth and two staff members are showing flu symptoms as well. Does your facility have a plan for what it would do in a similar situation? June 21st UPDATE: six youth at a Louisiana juvenile justice facility have come down with the flu. It's not clear if they're suffering from swine flu, but officials took the precaution of suspending weekend visitation to prevent the flu from spreading.
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