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| NCMHJJ Digging Deeper into Mental Health and Juvenile Justice with the Help of MacArthur |
| By Meghan Mandeville, News Research Reporter |
| Published: 09/29/2003 |
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Addiction and mental health problems plague many of the youth who are part of the country's juvenile justice system and the need to address these concerns has become more urgent over time. The National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice (NCMHJJ) is leading the charge to combat these issues and now has the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation behind it. A $1.2 million grant from MacArthur has fueled NCMHJJ's drive to centralize information and research about mental health, substance abuse and juvenile justice so people will have a place to go when they need information. "There's no place for people in the country to go and get that information," said Joseph Cocozza, Director of NCMHJJ. Our main goal is to make sure that there is a single national center for mental health information regarding juveniles, he added. Over three years, NCMHJJ hopes to apply the grant money to do just that, create a hub of research and information where practitioners and parents both can go to access information about the relationship between mental health and juvenile justice, including best-practices within the field, effective methods of screening and assessing juveniles and what types of services and funding are available, said Cocozza. Mental health is a prevalent issue within juvenile justice because of the high number of juveniles with mental health problems who enter the justice system, Cocozza said. "Probably at least one fourth of all of the youth have severe mental health problems," he added. Juveniles with mental health problems require a specialized type of care and "the juvenile justice system is not really trained [or] ready to provide it." Cocozza said. The goal of the NCMHJJ is to help agencies apply research to deal with the growing number of juveniles with mental health problems and to find ways to address these issues before juveniles become part of the justice system. This type of work is exactly what the MacArthur Foundation believes is needed and it agrees that dealing with juveniles' mental health problems early on is important to juvenile justice because behavior management can take place before they are ever detained or incarcerated. "In far too many cases, domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse and economic disadvantage disproportionately tip the scales that lead young people into juvenile delinquency and crime," said Laurie Garduque, Program Director and Chair of MacArthur's Individuals and Society Strategy Group. "Our support for the [juvenile justice] field is grounded in an understanding of adolescent development and its implications for the juvenile justice system's treatment of young offenders, with a special focus on the need to identify and treat mental health problems," she added. "We believe that what benefits the individual, benefits society," Garduque said. With MacArthur's support, NCMHJJ hopes through the grant to serve both individuals and society by better educating people about mental health problems, their effects, and their prevalence within the juvenile justice system. |
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