Supporting Youth Leaving Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare - New Recommendations

In part because of research that indicates that the human brain doesn't fully mature until about age 25, we now know that youth who are "connected by 25" -- have sufficient education, employment skills, and a positive social network -- are likely to be successful in life. But youth without such preparation are likely to struggle, at great cost to themselves and to society.

It's no accident that many of the youth in danger of being disconnected by 25 show up in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems -- often in both. To help system professionals prepare these youth, and the young adults 18-24 who are aging out of these systems, we have an excellent report and recommendations. The report, "Supporting Youth in Transition to Adulthood: Lessons Learned from Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice," offers a concise history of the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, lessons each system has learned that should be adopted by the other, and recommendations for better co-management of the youth they have in common. 
We can thank the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative for publishing it -- and the John D. and Catherine T. MacCarthur Foundation for funding it. (David Altschuler, the Principal Research Scientist who is listed as one of the authors of the report, was mentioned on this blog a while back about for his work on supporting youth leaving residential treatment.)