The Juvenile Behavioral Health Docket

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) envisions a nation where our children are healthy, educated, and free from violence. If they come into contact with the juvenile justice system, the contact should be rare, fair, and beneficial to them. To meet this vision, this program will focus on increasing the effectiveness of juvenile drug courts by: (1) supporting programs or strategies that recognize and engage the family as a valued partner in all components of the program; (2) supporting local training programs or teams that educate practitioners and their families to meet the needs of the adolescent client and include adolescent brain development, integrated treatment, trauma-informed care, cultural competency, and strong judicial interaction; (3) supporting the development of local programs that will engage stakeholders and build or enhance partnerships among judges, representatives from behavioral health treatment programs, juvenile justice, social services, school and vocational training programs, law enforcement, probation, prosecution, defense, and community organizations; (4) supporting existing juvenile drug courts to monitor and evaluate current practices to develop strategies to create policies and procedures that will address and provide solutions to identified local barriers and (5) developing and implementing data management systems, including disaggregated data by race and ethnicity of participants.
The Richmond Juvenile Drug Court (RJDC) will use funding to enhance and expand its existing juvenile drug court program. RJDC proposes to implement The Juvenile Behavioral Health Docket (JBHD). The docket system initiative aims to increase program enrollment, enrich the aftercare and family engagement practices within the program, upgrade data management and reporting, make drug court a more viable alternative to standard probation, and evaluate current practices to improve program effectiveness and outcomes. JBHD will replace the current Drug Court Program by targeting the moderate and high risk juvenile offenders. The project will begin with a study of existing practices that will include a survey of current, evidence based practices in juvenile drug courts. The evaluation will generate specific strategies for expanding drug court enrollment by engaging stakeholders (including juvenile offenders, their families, defense attorneys, Commonwealth’s Attorney, probation officers and city justice professionals). The JBHD project will increase family engagement by significantly enhancing the aftercare portion of the program and the existing case management system will be reviewed and modified based on the evaluation results. CA/NCF