By Barbara Tatem Kelley and Paul A. Haskins, National Institute of Justice Journal, August 10, 2021
Youth who have experienced both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have complex needs that require collaborative, multipronged interventions.
In a perfect world, a push of a button would connect all juvenile court judges and authorized staff to relevant local child welfare files for each young person summoned before the court. The imperfect reality is that in many American juvenile court systems, there is no button, no data linkage — no way to readily retrieve the often-instructive personal histories found in child welfare data.
Many jurisdictions lack even a culture of collaboration between child welfare services and juvenile justice, an interagency nexus needed to identify and attend to the unique, complex needs of so-called dual system youth — a vulnerable, high-risk population.
It falls to judges to be the catalysts of connectivity between juvenile justice and child welfare services, research[1] and experience have shown. “Judicial leadership is the single most important factor for successfully implementing the dual system crossover youth model, without question,” said Richard N. White, magistrate of the Mahoning County (OH) juvenile court. He added, “It is driven from the bench.”[2]
For leadership to make inroads against a nationwide challenge, however, scientifically sound, data-driven systems are needed to illuminate the population of dual system youth and their distinctive needs.
Dual system youth are a subset of “crossover youth” — juveniles who have been both victims of maltreatment and engaged in delinquent acts.
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