Advancing Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy and Program Briefs

The National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges created Advancing Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts: Policy and Program Briefs. This series of three briefs provides information to juvenile drug treatment courts on how to effectively serve youth with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders.

• Developing Effective Policies for Addressing the Needs of Court-Involved Youth with Co-occurring Disorders, by Robert Kinscherff, Ph.D., J.D., and Joseph J. Cocozza, Ph.D., suggests modifications to eight critical domains of the juvenile drug treatment court model to better address the needs of youth with co-occurring disorders.

• New Directions to Effectively Address Co-occurring Mental Disorders, by Holly Hills, Ph.D., and Karli J. Keator, M.P.H., outlines program modifications for juvenile drug courts to consider. Two models that have successfully served youth with co-occurring disorders are described.

• Providing Effective Treatment for Youth with Co-occurring Disorders, by Patrick Kanary, M.Ed., Richard Shepler, Ph.D., PCC-S, and Michael Fox, M.A., PCC, focuses on the promise of the integrated treatment model in working with youth with co-occurring disorders. Recent research showed significant improvement on multiple variables, including mental health problem severity and substance use, among youth receiving integrated co-occurring treatment.