2 research outputs found
Multidisciplinary Partnership: Targeting Aggression and Mental Health Problems of Adolescents in Detention
Justice-involved adolescents meet diagnostic criteria for mental health disorders at much higher rates than their counterparts, and this increased risk persists into young adulthood (Abram et al., 2015; Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002). Despite growing recognition of this problem, there remains a dearth of adequate therapeutic services in juvenile detention and marked variation in the quality and availability of community-based services (Kretschmar, Butcher, Flannery, & Singer, 2016). This article presents the development of a multidisciplinary partnership among clinical research psychologists and court professionals to address aggressive behaviors and unmet mental health needs of adolescents in the juvenile justice system. We describe the early stages of collaboration, in which experts from disparate disciplines joined forces to address a mounting problem in the juvenile justice system that represented both a gap in the research–practice continuum and a lack of vital mental health resources in the local community. We delineate the team composition, outline key players’ roles and contributions, and describe the principles that guided our collaboration across disciplines and agencies. We were effective in developing a sustainable multidisciplinary team, developing a new intervention, and implementing this new intervention in a challenging setting. The challenges we encountered throughout the process as well as the solutions that were generated and the lessons learned are discussed in detail. We discuss the substantive outcomes of our research and conclude with recommendations for readers interested in organizing similar academic-research/community partnerships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved
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Addressing A Mental Health Intervention Gap in Juvenile Detention: A Pilot Study
Research suggests that 60–70% of adolescents detained in the juvenile justice system meet criteria for a mental health disorder compared to 20% of the general adolescent population; however, the vast majority do not receive services. Unfortunately, mental health symptoms often worsen during detainment, and detainment is linked to lower levels of educational attainment and increased risk of adult recidivism. Thus, not only are these adolescents unlikely to receive needed mental health care but also the lack of interventions in detention may exacerbate inequities of contact with the criminal justice system in adulthood. In addition to these youth being an underserved population broadly, youth of color are also disproportionately incarcerated compared to their white counterparts. The current paper describes results of a pilot study of an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)-based behavioral skills intervention, aimed at providing evidence-based mental health treatment for anadolescent population at risk of long-term adverse mental health outcomes. The study included 128 males aged 14–17 who resided in juvenile detention. Results demonstrated that the intervention was acceptable to participants, feasible to provide in detention, and could be implemented with fidelity and competency. Intervention participants demonstrated declines in symptoms of mental health, and ACT-specific constructs of experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and perceived barriers to moving toward their values. These results have important implications for the possibility of an effective intervention that could disrupt systemic inequity in youth mental health, and thus support further testing of this intervention in a randomized controlled trial.Institute for Mental Health Research12 month embargo; published online: 20 April 2022This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]