Behavioral Health Problems Treatment and Outcomes in Serious Youthful Offenders

Course overview

This course is based upon material published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and is available as an open access publication. The course material summarizes findings from three sets of analyses of data from the Pathways to Desistance study. These analyses addressed the overlap of behavioral health problems and offending behavior among participating youth; the match between their disorders and the care they received in juvenile justice settings; and the continuation of care that study participants received in the community upon their release from an institutional setting. Taken together, these results suggest the need to modify expectations about reducing criminal offending by offering mental health services in juvenile justice. They also point to potential opportunities for system improvement. This course on serious youthful offenders is designed for clinical social workers, psychologists, professional counselors, substance abuse counselors and nurses who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their understanding of serious youthful offenders. The course material includes an introduction to the literature on serious youthful offenders as well as significant clinical factors. The course then covers empirically reviewed treatments and provides a simple to understand list of interventions that have been demonstrated to be effective. This course is particularly useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal.