Southern Ute Youth and Family Treatment Court Services

Part of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative, a joint initiative of DOJ and the U.S. Department of the Interior to improve law enforcement and the administration of criminal and juvenile justice in Indian country, OJJDP's Tribal Youth Program (TYP) supports and enhances tribal efforts to prevent and control delinquency and strengthen the juvenile justice system for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth. This program is authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended and the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2009, Pub. L. 111-8.

The Southern Ute Indian Tribe aims to implement a mental health services program for family court youth. The primary goals are to reduce juvenile delinquency and factors that foster delinquency, such as family substance abuse, violence, child abuse, neglect, and criminality. In Year 1, a team of family court therapists (total 4.8 FTE) will be trained in substance, mental health, and anger management assessments and therapies. In Years 2 to 4, the team will implement the programs to help children, youth and families enrolled in accountability-treatment court proceedings. The assessments are Beck Combined Inventory and Adolescent Diagnostic Inventory (ADI) to reveal the clients' substance and mental health conditions. The treatments are Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), Structured Sensory Interventions for Traumatized Children, Adolescents, and Parents (SITCAP), and Anger Management, to address high rates of substance involvement and exposure to trauma and violence. The program will also support a substance counselor as well as data management and evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the programs in the target community. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe will report on required TYP performance measures to OJJDP.
CA/NCF