Juvenile Justice Integrated Treatment

Juvenile justice integrated treatment settings combat juvenile delinquency with a holistic treatment approach rather than the alternative of being sent to a detention center, which does not engage the youth offender.

The basis for the model says a youth's criminal behavior is learned so therefore it can be un-learned. It includes assessment for mental health and substance abuse treatment and a comprehensive treatment program providing mental health, education, employment or vocational help and physical health instruction. These integrated treatment settings are also called residential treatment programs.

They work on maintaining positive change and developing a set of cognitive behavior-based skills for the youth offender.

What is Integrated Treatment?

• In "Counselor: The Magazine for Addiction Professionals," Dean Braxton writes that while overall juvenile arrests are down nationwide, youth being arrested on substance abuse-related charges are climbing.

  Braxton, a treatment fellow and substance abuse manager in Seattle, says that although treating substance abuse reduces crime, it alone is not sufficient. The integrated treatment model effectively reduces maladaptive behavior with instruction on how to change the behaviors. The integrated treatment approach is often seen in residential treatment programs where family involvement is a part of the treatment model. It addresses all of the issues affecting a teen offender, not just the crime in which he or she was arrested. The integrated model prepares the youth offender to re-enter an imperfect society with a set of coping skills.

Court-Ordered Treatment

• Court-ordered treatment helps juvenile offenders.

  The judge will issue the court-ordered treatment, if necessary, after the arrest. Treatment begins with an assessment of the juvenile offender to find out educational level, substance abuse issues and mental health issues, according to the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice.

  It is important for judges and court administrators to understand what options are available in their community so they can decide whether to send the drug-addicted or mentally ill youth offender to an integrated program.

  If available, juvenile court systems have specialized court and assessment methods, such as drug and mental health court and residential treatment programs. Availability of services depends on the needs of the community.

Mental Health and the Juvenile Offender

• The Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, a report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), says that more than 60 percent of drug offenders were "easily upset, quick tempered and often angry."

  The April 2010 Department of Justice report said most of the youth in residential treatment programs frequently self-report problems of this kind. Forty-three percent of the juveniles in an integrated treatment or residential treatment program are there because of acts of violence. Many of them have had contact with child protective services in the past and or have witnessed acts of violence, producing emotional scars.

  Counseling services within the treatment program help with this.

Substance Abuse and Juvenile Delinquency

• Fifty-nine percent of the youth interviewed for the Department of Justice Surveying Youth in Residential Placement report say they got drunk and or high several times of week or more months before they were taken into custody.

  Substance abuse screening and treatment are important, but not all juvenile centers provide them, according to the DOJ report. It says 19 percent of facilities that serve juvenile offenders don't provide substance abuse screening. Thirty-six percent are in facilities that screen only some offenders.

  When the violent, emotionally damaged and often poly-substance-addicted juvenile offender is not in treatment, maladaptive behaviors increase.

Ending Maladaptive Behaviors

• Counteracting the maladaptive behaviors starts with the establishment of a sound cognitive-behavioral treatment model. It works without a youth's commitment to change, according to a 2002 Washington state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration report on Integrated Treatment models.

  More than 69 percent of youth reported lack of basic health care needs being met, according to the OJJDP Survey of Youth in Residential Placement report. They also found high rates of truancy. Combined, these parameters create an atmosphere where juvenile delinquents thrive.