Recently, clinical studies have focused specifically on the effects of trauma on juveniles in the criminal justice system. Now that advances have been made in understanding how traumatic stress influences the behavior of many youths, juvenile corrections facilities are beginning to address the issue to help offenders learn how to cope with their emotions in a positive way, rather than resorting to negative behavior. One of these facilities is Connecticut's New Haven Juvenile Detention Center.

“Roughly 85% of the juveniles here have encountered some sort of traumatic stress,” says Karl Alston, Superintendent of the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center. “Treating their traumatic stress issues is working – we have started to see reductions in room confinement and reductions in constraints.”

According the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, traumatic stress is defined as “the emotional, cognitive, behavioral, physiological experience of individuals who are exposed to, or who witness, events that overwhelm their coping and problem-solving abilities."

Alston says that treating the traumatic stress of juveniles can often change behavior patterns, reduce violent tendencies, and develop coping strategies. The Trauma Adaptive Recovery Group Education and Therapy (TARGET) program was developed by the University of Connecticut, and piloted at the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center. Due to the success of the program, officials are implementing TARGET in many other juvenile facilities, both public and private, across the state. And Alston says the results are obvious daily.

“There was one juvenile that we had recently – he's 15, 16 years-old,” Alston says. “He had anger problems – he was very strong and violent. Finally, I assigned an officer to go over the first four steps of the TARGET program with him on a daily basis. His behavior began to change immediately, and the following court date, he was released with no further charges and a good court record. He decided to use the program's tools to help him cope – he had periods where he had no incidents, and eventually he was able to go home.”

Alston says these dramatic changes of behavior are frequent among young offenders in the TARGET program.

Screening for Traumatic Stress

Before entering the TARGET program every youth must be screened for traumatic stress using the Traumatic Events Screening Inventory (TESI). TESI lets officials at the facility know what the juveniles have experienced in terms of trauma, and their past history. Using this information, officials can determine which juveniles can benefit from further assessment. However, all of the children at the New Haven Detention Center are enrolled in the TARGET program.

“If there's a kid that has true effects of trauma, and it's affecting him or her, then the child will be referred to the mental health department,” Alston says. “Once they go to the mental health department, they are assessed further so that we can make sure we meet their needs.”

According to Alston, roughly 6.5% of the juveniles at the New Haven Detention Center suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For those youths, special needs plans are developed for them – on an individual basis – within 24 hours of their arrival at the facility. Each juvenile is also assigned a specific case manager with a clinical background who manages their case.

The TARGET program is made up of ten total group sessions, but juveniles who are in the facility for a shorter period of time are enrolled in the first four sessions of the TARGET group.

Targeting Stress

Once traumatic stress is identified, the TARGET program uses many different concepts in order to help juveniles change their behavior. Youths learn how to identify trauma and the effects it can have on an individual person. They also have access to group therapy sessions, one-on-one sessions, and concepts such as S.O.S. which stands for Slow down, Orientate yourself, and Self-check. S.O.S has been particularly helpful for juvenile offenders with behavioral problems because it slows the time between emotional response and action.

“This is a strength-based bio-psycho-social approach to teaching trauma and extreme stress survivor's self-regulation skills,” Alston says. “We teach them practical ways to safely process current stress.”

While some juveniles only need to go through the TARGET program once, some offenders require more attention and more exposure to the programs to change their ways. Alston says that to help these youths, the TARGET program supplies additional groups that are more intense.

Between the TARGET program, case manager and group therapy sessions, juveniles at the New Haven Detention Facility are rehabilitating themselves and changing their behaviors daily. And for Alston, that's part of the reward of working with youths.

“Our goal is to have an excellent quality of life. We'd like to see our children become productive citizens in the community. We don't run this like a prison – and we're making a huge difference,” Alston says. “While they are in detention, even if they go to other places for treatment, we want to make sure that when kids leave our doors, they are in better condition than when they came in.”