NCJ Number
224255
Date Published
August 2008
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This paper describes all identified building blocks of a comprehensive model system for addressing the needs of Pennsylvania's youth with behavioral health disorders in the juvenile justice system and the ongoing State and county efforts to cement them into day-to-day practice.
Abstract
Pennsylvania is currently engaged in an effort to build a "comprehensive model system" for identifying, appropriately diverting, and effectively serving and treating court-involved youth with behavioral disorders. This paper lists and describes the identified building blocks of a comprehensive model system, including routine screening and assessment of youth for behavioral health problems, an appropriate continuum of programs and services for diverting and treating them, opportunities for family involvement in their treatment, appropriate protections for their privacy and other legal interests, and sustainable funding mechanism that support all of these practices, and sets a goal of all counties by the target year 2010. Pennsylvania's comprehensive model system is not going to happen all at once; it is likely to be a work in progress for some time.