Youth Development Court Multi-Systems Track

The OJJDP FY 2014 Enhancements to Juvenile Drug Courts solicitation provides funding for currently operating juvenile drug courts to enhance capacity and services. A juvenile drug court provides comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, community-based services for youth who are younger than 18 years old and come in contact with the juvenile justice system due to alcohol or other drug use. The goal of this program is to enhance the capacity of juvenile drug courts and ultimately improve the outcome for the youth involved in the juvenile drug court program. Enhancements to juvenile drug courts will focus on one or more of the following key components of a juvenile drug court: (1) increase the use of scientifically based screening and assessment procedures for youth in contact with the juvenile justice system to identify youth in need of mental health and substance abuse services; (2) expand the range of developmentally appropriate and evidence-based programs and services to ensure a continuum of care is available for these youth; (3) enhance or develop family engagement; and/or (4) expand the outcome monitoring of the juvenile drug court.

The Colorado Judicial Department, 2nd Judicial District will use funding to enhance available programming offered at their Juvenile Drug Court that focuses on youth with concurrent child welfare and juvenile justice involvement. The proposed program will serve crossover youth in the City and County of Denver through a judicial collaborative that will augment current services provided by the Juvenile Drug Court with trauma-informed, age and gender appropriate services for youth with dual systems involvement. The grant funds will be used to serve 75 juvenile offenders with the evidence-based Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach/Assertive Community Care case management model and will provide 135 families or concerned significant others over a three year period. The grant will focus on creating a specialized format within this existing Juvenile Drug Court that will ensure access to substance abuse and mental health services tailored to the unique needs of the crossover youth population, coupled with a specific focus on enhancing family engagement that is traditionally lacking with crossover youth and their families. There will be a significant effort to increase collaboration between the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in order to address the issues related to multi-systems involvement. CA/NCF